NASH  D.D 


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OCT  13  1920 


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^  -  -^n^A.A^ . 

BX  9931  .M36  v. 7         '  ^ 
Nash,  Charles  Ellwood,  1855 
1932. 

The  saviour  of  the  world 


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iWanuals  of  JTaitl)  ant!  Dutj?, 

EDITED    BY    REV.  J.   S.   CANTWELL,   D.D. 


A  SERIES  of  short  boo]fs  in  exposition  of  prominent  teachings 
of  the  Universalist  Church,  and  the  moral  and  religious 
obligations  of  believers.  They  are  prepared  by  writers  selected  for 
their  ability  to  present  in  brief  compass  an  instructive  and  helpful 
Manual  on  the  subject  undertaken.  The  volumes  are  affirmative 
and  constructive  in  statement,  avoiding  controversy,  while  specifically 
unfolding  doctrines. 

The  Manuals  of  Faith  and  Duty  are  sold  at  25  cents  each. 
Uniform  in  size,  style,  and  price. 

I.    THE  FATHERHOOD  OF  GOD.     By  Rev.  J.    Coleman  Adams, 

D.U.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

n.     JESUS  THE  CHRIST.     By  Rev.  S.  Crane,  D.D.,  Sycamore,  111. 

m.     REVELATION.      By  Rev.   I.   M.   Atwood,  D.D.,  President   of 
the  Theological  School,  Canton,  N.  Y. 

IV.     CHRIST  IN  THE  LIFE.     By  Rev.    Warren   S.    Woodbridge, 
Medford,  Mass. 

V.     SALVATION.      By   Rev.    Orello    Cone,    D.D.,   President   of 
Buchtel  College,  Akron,  O. 

VI.    THE  BIRTH  FROM  ABOVE.     By  Rev.  Charles  Follen  Lee, 
Boston,  Mass. 

Vn.    THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.     By  Rev.  Charles  Ell- 

woou  Nash,  D.D.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 
Vm.    THE  CHURCH.     By  Rev.  Henry  W.  Rugg,  D.D.,  Providence, 
R.  I. 
IX.    HEAVEN.     By  Rev.  George  Sumner  Weaver,  D.D.,  Canton, 

N.  Y. 
X.    ATONEMENT.     By  Rev.  William  Tucker,  D.D.,  Camden,  O. 
XI.    PRAYER.     By  Rev.  George  H.  Deere,  D.D.,  Riverside,  Cal. 

published  by  the 
UNIVERSALIST    PUBLISHING    HOUSE, 

Western  Branch :  69  Dearborn  Street,  Chicago. 


JUanuate  of  JFaitl)  anti  ©utg. 

No.  VII. 


THE 


SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 


BY 

CHARLES  ELLWOOD  NASH,  D.D. 


The  Father  sent  the  Son  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  World. 

1  John  iv.  14. 


BOSTON: 

UNIVERSALIST  PUBLISHING  HOUSE. 

1895. 


Copyright,  1895, 
By  the  Universalist  Publishing  House. 


Sant&ersttg  ^rega: 
John  Wilsok  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


CONTENTS. 


INTKODUCTORY. 

Section  Page 

I.  The  Claim  and  its  Significance      .     .  6 

11.  Reality  of  the  Claim 14 

III.  The  Claim  Admissible 25 

IV.  Why  a  Saviour? 29 

V.  What  is  it  to  be  saved? 35 

VI.  The  Problem 39 

VII.  Man  needs  Salvation 44 

VIII.  Men  cannot  save  Themselves     ...  51 

IX.  Man  needs  a  Personal  Friend    ...  56 

X.  One     Perfect    Saviour    needed    and 

One  only 65 

XI.  How  is  Christ  a  Saviour?      ....  73 

XII.  The  Gift  of  Life 98 

XIII.  What  a  Saviour! 101 


"STfjc  iuorlli  sits  at  t])t  feet  of  Cijrist 
2Enknoh)mg,  falmU,  anU  unconsokti; 
Ht  get  sball  toudj  ?^is  garnunt's  (oltl, 
^nti  feel  t\)t  fjeabcnlg  ^lc\)tmist 
transform  its  berg  Hust  to  C&olti.'* 

J.  G.  Whittier. 

(Sreat  !)arm  mag  be  tione  ig  tntsconceiijing  t\}t  person 
of  (JT^rist;  but  tf]e  greatest  Ijarm  — tbe  onlg  immtti'gateti 
barm  — is  Hone  tobcn  be  Hcng  tbat  somebobj  fflroti  is  in 
tint  antJ  in  \}im  most  of  all. 

Prof.  Marcus  Dodds,  D.D. 


THE 

SAVIOUR    OF    THE    WORLD. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

THE  theme  of  this  essay  might  well  have 
been  discussed  under  the  inclusive  titles 
of  other  volumes  which  have  preceded  it  in  the 
series  of  Manuals.  Between  the  gaps,  however, 
of  the  treatment  of  those  titles,  necessarily 
meagre  as  prescribed  by  a  strict  page-limit,  the 
editor  finds  room  for  the  line  of  study  pursued 
herein. 

The  theme  itself  is  central,  spermatic.  In 
our  times  the  real  incidence  of  infidelity  is  at 
this  point.  The  most  vital  challenge  of  un- 
belief is  that  which  casts  suspicion  upon  the 
perpetual  mastership  of  Jesus;  while  the  re- 
sources of  Christian  apologetics  are  more  and 
more  being  called  in  from  merely  tactical  or 
ornamental  outposts  to  rally  around  this  doc- 
trine as  the  very  bleeding  heart  of  the  Gospel. 


6  THE   SAVIOUR   OF  THE   WORLD. 

The  object  of  our  little  book  is  not  to  defend 
but  to  interpret  the  right  of  Jesus  to  the  title 
"the  Saviour  of  the  World;"  to  show  what 
occasion  there  is  in  human  need  and  in  the 
divine  plan  for  such  a  Saviour ;  to  indicate  the 
methods  by  which  Jesus  effects  the  task,  and  to 
point  out  his  qualifications  for  the  immense 
undertaking. 

I.  —  The  Claim  and  its  Significance. 

Jesus  of  Nazareth  claimed  to  be  the 
Saviour  of  the  World.  This,  indeed,  was  his 
dominant  and  most  distinctive  pretension,  the 
essence  and  aggregate  of  all  his  claims.  What- 
ever else  he  professed  to  be  and  to  do  was 
subsidiary  to  this  supreme  office.  In  his 
self-apprehension,  sonhood,  messiahship,  am- 
bassadorial function,  and  "miracle"  power 
were  each  but  a  part  of  the  absorbing  whole  of 
his  Saviourhood.  That,  above  every  other  rela- 
tion, expresses  the  motive,  method,  mission  of 
his  life. 

So  familiar  is  this  claim  that  our  ears  are 
dull  to  its  import.  Its  very  magnificence  and 
audacity  render  it  difficult  to  seize.     The  initial 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  7 

proposition  above  is,  however,  offered  in  good 
faith;  its  terms  are  meant  to  be  literal  and 
precise;  every  item  is  premeditated  and  em- 
phatic. In  the  scientific  sense  of  the  words, 
we  repeat  that  Jesus  claimed  to  be  the  Saviour 
of  the  world. 

The  full  weight  of  this  postulate  can  best  be 
felt  by  first  estimating  each  member  separately. 

1.  It  is  Jesus  himself  that  testifies,  -r— Note, 
first,  that  what  we  allege  is  the  self-conscious- 
ness of  Jesus,  his  deposition  on  his  own  behalf, 
—  not  any  extravagant  post  obit  laudations  of 
certain  over-fond,  half-hypnotized  admirers. 
The  witness  of  apostles  and  evangelists  has  of 
course  its  own  value;  but  here  we  have  the 
"mind  of  Christ."  The  self-appraisement  of 
Jesus  is  of  the  very  texture  of  the  Gospel 
record,  expressed  in  his  words,  implied  in  his 
philosophy,  assumed  in  his  attitude,  necessary 
to  his  authority.  It  cannot  be  detached  and 
discharged  from  the  narrative,  except  by  a 
violence  of  a  priori  tyranny  which  tears  the 
story  to  tatters,  leaving  scarcely  a  shred  upon 
which  faith  may  hang  with  confidence.  The 
claim  as  put  forth  by  Jesus  is  not  casual  nor 
incidental;    it    is    central,    italic,    inevitable. 


8  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE    WORLD. 

appearing  consistently  and  characteristically 
throughout  his  sayings  and  doings.  It  is  not 
ecstatic  but  calm  and  noi'inal ;  not  covert  but 
pronounced ;  is  urged  without  apology  or  proof, 
and  equally  without  sign  of  vanity  or  of  embar- 
rassment; is  emphasized  in  each  of  the  four 
Gospels,  though  more  definitively  in  that  accord- 
ing to  John;  and  must  be  regarded  as  one  of 
the  most  distinguishing  marks  of  the  doctrine 
of  Jesus. 

The  very  conception  of  such  a  claim  is  a  sur- 
prise and  a  marvel.  It  was  not  one  to  be  easily 
invented  by  the  infatuation  of  that  age.  Other 
heroes  have  aspired  to  world-wide  dominion; 
but  who  had  dreamed  of  the  possibility  of  a 
mortal  man  swaying  and  moulding,  not  the 
behaviors,  professions,  opinions,  but  the  very 
characters  of  universal  humanity  ?  What  a 
mind  must  have  been  his  who  first  entertained 
the  thought  of  salvation  for  the  whole  world! 
What  measureless  assurance  in  the  boast  by  any 
man,  of  power  vested  in  him  to  achieve  that 
stupendous  result!  There  are  moral  as  well  as 
material  impossibilities.  The  evangelists  were 
not  competent  to  the  originality,  the  grandeur, 
the  hardihood,  of  such  an  invention. 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF   THE   WORLD.  9 

There  is  even  less  likelihood  that,   if  they 
could  have  fabricated  the  vision  of  such  a  con- 
quest for  their  hero,  they  would  have  imposed 
upon  him  the  peril  of  sounding  his  own  trumpet 
before  men.     At  first  blush,  such  a  pretension 
would  seem  to  argue  only  a  maudlin  or  insane 
conceit.     It  would  more  readily  excite  derision 
or  contempt  than  command  credence  and  hom- 
age.    It  is  probable  that  no  other  great  Founder 
of  a  Religion  ever  put  forward  such  personal 
claims.    Not  Confucius,  assuredly,  who  humbled 
himself  rather  before   the   superior   merits  of 
ancient  teachers :  "  I  cannot  bear  to  hear  myself 
called  equal  to  the  sages  and  the  good.     All 
that  can  be  said  of  me  is,  that  I  study  with 
delight  the  conduct  of  the  sages,  and  ins-truct 
men  without  weariness  therein. "     Not  Gautama 
the  Buddha :  "  The  Perfect  thinks  not  that  it  is 
he  who  should  lead  the  brotherhood,  or  that  the 
Buddhist  order  is  dependent  upon  him.     Why, 
then,  should  he  leave  instructions  in  any  matter 
concerning  the  order?  "     Not  Socrates,  who  said 
to  his  pupil  Alcibiades:  "Unless  it  please  God 
to  send  us  some  one  from  Him  to  instruct  us, 
do  not  hope  ever  to  succeed  in  reforming  the 
morals  of  men.     The  best  course  we  can  take  is 


10  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

to  wait  patiently.  Yes,  ...  we  must  wait  till 
some  one  comes. "  In  a  word,  the  almost  excep- 
tionless humility  of  great  men  is  proverbial.  Is 
it,  after  all,  humility,  or  rather  a  deep  sense  of 
real  limitation  to  which  shallow  souls  do  not 
attain  ?  Jesus  too  acknowledged  limitations, 
but  not  with  any  hint  of  deference  to  other  men. 
Before  the  Father  only  he  made  obeisance;  as 
to  men  he  asserted  mastery  and  lordship.  Was 
this  mere  egotism  ?  Was  it  monomania  ?  Or 
was  it  a  true  and  tremendous  self-revelation  ? 
Whatever  answer  we  find  for  these  questions, 
whether  we  regard  the  claim  as  a  blemish  or  an 
effulgence  in  his  character,  the  claim  remains 
as  a  substantive  element  in  the  teaching  of 
Jesus.  He  claimed  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the 
world. 

2.  An  actual  Saviour,  — Next,  the  claim  is 
that  Jesus  really  saves,  and  is  to  save,  men. 
He  is  not  merely  an  experimenter  or  endeav- 
orer ;  not  a  would-be  reformer ;  not  a  weaver  of 
pleasant  dreams;  not  simply  a  preacher  of  sal- 
vation, but  actually  a  saver  of  sinners.  His 
announcement  of  the  fact  is  not  weakened  by 
any  accent  of  uncertainty.  He  never  says  "I 
wish,"  or  "I  '11  try,"  or  "It  may  be."    No  mere 


THE    SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  H 

assurance  of  sympathy  or  promise  of  effort  is 
extended.  The  ability  to  do  whatever  is  needed 
is  serenely  assumed  or  boldly  alleged.  He  not 
only  wants  to  save  or  will  try  to  save,  —  he  ean 
save,  he  ivill  save.  This  is  uniformly  his  tone. 
The  outcome  of  his  mission  is,  indeed,  con- 
ditioned but  not  contingent.  He  engages  un- 
qualifiedly to  effect  the  result,  but  recognizes 
also  the  perplexities  of  the  problem  to  be  solved. 
He  lets  it  be  known  that  his  method  is  one  of 
persuasion  and  education,  not  of  bare  compul- 
sion; that  he  proposes  to  respect  the  individ- 
ual's liberty  of  choice;  that  there  are  inexorable 
requisites,  —  such  as  faith,  repentance,  obedi- 
ence, the  birth  from  above,  the  baptism  of  the 
Spirit,  —  without  satisfying  which  no  one  can 
be  saved.  These  conditions  are  presumed ;  they 
are  imjylied,  not  as  preliminary  to  salvation, 
but  among  the  elements  which  define  salvation. 
They  indicate  just  what  needs  to  be  done,  what 
constitutes  the  predicament  of  "  the  lost, "  what 
work  a  Saviour  has  before  him.  Merely  to 
analyze  and  announce  these  conditions  a  phi- 
losopher, or  at  most  a  prophet,  would  suffice; 
it  is  the  business  of  a  Saviour  to  meet  them,  to 
get  them  fulfilled.     To  cite  these  as  limiting  the 


12  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

triumphs  of  Jesus  is  simply  to  affirm  his  impo- 
tence, to  argue  that  because  there  is  something 
to  do,  therefore  it  will  be  not  done !  Jesus  cer- 
tainly did  not  offer  just  to  explain  the  nature 
and  terms  of  salvation,  but  pledged  himself 
actually  to  save  the  world. 

3.  The  ivhole  world  to  he  saved.  —  Thirdly,  the 
ability  and  purpose  to  save  are  said  to  involve 
all  men  in  their  beneficent  operations.  The 
variety  of  expression  given  to  this  assumption 
seems  to  preclude  every  rational  demur,  which 
does  not  repudiate  the  historicity  of  the  record, 
or  impugn  the  authority  of  Jesus.  Let  the 
array  of  evidence  below  speak  for  itself. 

4.  The  only  universal  Saviour.  —  More  yet, 
much  more  did  Jesus  claim,  —  more  than 
genuine  saving  power,  more  than  world-wide 
victories.  He  presented  himself  as  the  Saviour 
of  men ;  that  is,  the  only  adequate  and  unlimited 
Saviour. 

He  recognized,  to  be  sure,  the  value  of  the 
service  rendered  by  others.  He  did  not  claim 
a  monopoly  of  virtue  or  helpfulness.  He  ac- 
knowledged other  prophets  of  God:  their  work 
he  came  not  to  destroy  but  to  fulfiL  They  too 
in  their  degree  were  saviours,  but  not  able  to 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  13 

carry  the  process  clear  through.  He  honored 
their  endeavors,  but  declared  their  insufficiency. 
He  was  wholly  without  jealousy  in  the  matter, 
generously  welcoming  the  alliance  of  those  even 
who  denied  his  authority,  saying  with  fine  hos- 
pitality, "  He  that  is  not  against  us  is  for  us. " 
Nevertheless  he  asserted  his  own  primacy,  not 
as  a  boast,  not  as  a  merit,  not  as  an  ambition, 
but  simply  as  a  fact,  —  this  in  language  that 
shows  no  trace  of  intended  metaphor  or  hyper- 
bole, —  tranquil,  straightforward,  consistent, 
decisive. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  Jesus  "claimed 
nothing  for  himself, "  —  a  capital  error.  Not 
"as  an  end,"  if  you  please,  but  surely  "as  a 
means,"  he  claimed  a  great  deal  for  himself. 
In  the  very  foreground  of  his  teaching  he  placed 
himself,  his  office,  his  mission,  his  dignity,  his 
authority,  dwarfed  and  subordinated  there  only 
by  the  supreme  majesty  of  the  Father.  He, 
quite  as  much  as  his  disciples,  admitted  "no 
rival  near  the  throne."  His  own  language  far 
more  than  theirs  insists  upon  his  undisputed 
mastership  over  the  faiths  and  fruits  of  the  dis- 
cipleship  that  professed  allegiance  to  him,  sub- 
ject, always,  it  may  be  well  to  reiterate,  to  his 


14  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

Father  and  our  Father,  his  God  and  our  God 
(John  XX.  IT). 

This  then  is  the  significance  of  our  proposi- 
tion. With  an  accent  upon  every  word,  Jesus 
claimed  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  This, 
we  say,  is  his  own  plain  declaration  concerning 
himself,  not  the  flattery  of  his  followers,  not 
the  slow  accretion  of  myth-making  centuries. 
If  anything  in  the  canonical  records  is  trust- 
worthy as  history,  this  self-estimation  is  so. 
We  do  not  at  this  point  touch  the  inquiry 
whether  the  claim  itself  is  credible.  We  only 
affirm  that  Jesus  actually  made  the  claim  in  all 
its  radicalness  and  magnitude. 

Let  us  appeal  to  the  texts  for  evidence  which 
justifies  this  ascription. 

II.  —  Reality  of  the  Claim. 

We  cannot  undertake  within  the  dimensions 
of  our  small  volume  to  develop  this  evidence 
fully.  Yet  what  we  cite  will  probably  be  ample 
for  all  who  are  content  to  leave  the  veracity  of 
the  records  unimpeachcd. 

1.  That  Jesus  himself  made  the  claim  will 
appear  in  the  fact  that  all  the  references  given 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  15 

under  the  following  heads  are  to  his  words,  and 
not  to  any  opinion  or  commentary  of  others, 
which,  for  the  present,  we  exclude. 

2.  That  he  claimed  the  power  and  prerogative 
of  an  actual  saver  of  men  —  not  a  mere  phi- 
losophizer  or  philanthropist  —  is  evinced  as 
follows :  — 

He  is  the  "bread  of  life,"  which  will  infalli- 
bly appease  the  hunger  and  thirst  of  those  who 
come  to  him  (John  vi.  35). 

He  is  "  sent "  from  the  Father,  not  simply  to 
propose  a  scheme  or  offer  a  chance  of  salvation, 
but  "that  the  world  should  be  saved  through 
him  "  (John  iii.  17). 

He  is  the  "  door "  that  opens,  not  into  an 
opportunity  merely,  but  into  effectual  salvation 
(John  X.  9). 

To  those  that  "  labor  and  are  heavy  laden  "  he 
promises  (through  coming  to  him  and  wearing 
his  yoke)  not  sympathy  alone,  but  assured  rest 
(Matt.  xi.  28,  29). 

To  his  sheep  he  gives  (not  offers)  eternal  life 
(John  X.  28). 

He  has  received  "authority  over  all  flesh," 
that  he  should  give  eternal  life  (John  xvii.  2). 

He  has  "  power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins " 
(Mark  ii.  10). 


16  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

To  the  centurion  his  pledge  is,  "  I  will  come 
and  heal  "  thy  servant  (Matt.  viii.  7). 

"  The  Son  of  man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save 
(not  seek  to  save)  that  which  was  lost  (Luke 
xix.  10). 

"  I  came  that  they  may  have  life ;  "  not  "  if 
they  choose,"  but  unequivocally  may  have  it 
(John  X.  10). 

"I  am  the  light  of  the  world,"  not  I  am  will- 
ing to  be,  or  ambitious  to  be,  but  /  am  (John 
viii.  12). 

And  his  full  competency  to  meet  all  these 
self-imposed  obligations  is  summed  up  in  the 
immense  affirmation,  "All  power  (authority) 
hath  been  given  me  in  heaven  and  on  earth" 
(Matt,  xxviii.  18). 

These  are  fair  specimens  of  an  habitual  use 
of  language  than  which  nothing  more  confident 
or  explicit  can  be  conceived.  There  is  no  diffi- 
dence of  self -distrust,  no  dismay  before  appar- 
ently insuperable  tasks,  no  misgiving  as  to  the 
ultimate  outlook.  He  believes  in  himself;  he 
feels  able  to  "save  to  the  uttermost  (i.  e.,  com- 
pletely) them  that  draw  near  unto  God  through 
him  "  (Heb.  vii.  25). 

In  all  this  there  is  no  countenance  whatever 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  17 

for  the  pettifogging  suggestion,  begotten  of  cer- 
tain creed  exigencies,  that  a  distinction  is  to  be 
made  between  the  potential  Saviour  which  Jesus 
is  to  all  alike,  and  the  actual  Saviour  he  is  to 
some ;  or  that  Jesus  or  anybody  else  can  be  a 
saviour  to  those  he  does  not  really  save.  These 
are  speculative  refinements  (where  they  are  not 
rank  absurdities)  which  are  wholly  alien  to  the 
unvarnished,  matter-of-fact  modes  of  Jesus' 
speech.  He  came  not  to  propound  a  theory,  but 
to  execute  a  task,  — that  of  reintroducing  the 
Father  to  his  children  and  effecting  a  reconcili- 
ation between  them.  That  task  he  expected  to 
accomplish  in  due  time,  because  he  felt  himself 
to  be  adequately  endowed  thereto,  and  that  as 
God's  representative  having  limitless  resources 
failure  was  out  of  the  question.  Such  are  the 
tone  and  posture  that  characterize  him  at  all 
times. 

3.  The  very  texts  which  assert  his  actual 
saving  influence  assert  also  its  world-wide  scope. 
He  customarily  thought  and  apoke  of  himself, 
not  as  a  saviour  merely,  but  as.  a  saviour 
of  mankind,  —  of  the  whole  world..  Thus  the 
proof  under  each  particular  largely  dupli- 
cates  that  under  the  others.     To  the  citations 

2 


18  THE   SAVIOUR   OF   THE   WORLD. 

already  quoted  we  may,  however,  add  the  fol- 
lowing :  — 

He  came  "  not  to  judge  the  world  but  to  save 
the  world  "  (John  xii.  47).  If  it  be  objected  that 
"the  world"  may  mean  the  race,  rather  than 
every  human  being  (though  how  it  is  possible  to 
save  the  race  without  saving  every  member  of 
it  has  not  yet  been  shown),  at  least  the  passage 
proves  that  the  outlook  and  hope  of  Jesus  were 
not  local,  national,  nor  transient  in  their  reach, 
but  humanity-wide  and  humanity-long ;  a  min- 
imum interpretation  scarcely  less  awesome  than 
the  plenary  one. 

"All  that  the  Father  giveth  me  shall  come  to 
me,"  and  shall  be  "in  no  wise  cast  out"  (John 
vi.  37).  Nothing  of  that  gift  shall  be  lost  (39). 
Does  this  mean  merely  that  he  will  save  those 
whom  he  will  save  ?  How  many  are  given  ?  Is 
not  this  the  answer:  "The  Father  hath  given 
all  things  into  his  hand  "  (John  iii.  35 ;  xiii.  3), 
and  has  "  given  him  authority  over  all  flesh  "  in 
order  expressly  that  he  may  "  give  eternal  life  " 
to  all  (John  xvii.  2). 

When  he  has  completed  his  labors  "there 
shall  be  one  flock,  one  shepherd  "  (John  x.  16), 
which   certainly   negatives   the   dogma  of   two 


THE   SAVIOUR   OF  THE   WORLD.  19 

flocks  forever,  one  in  heaven,  one  in  hell.  On 
this  prophecy,  the  only  logical  alternative  of 
Universalism   is   annihilation. 

On  condition  that  he  be  "  lifted  up  from  the 
earth,"  —  a  condition  which  was  presently  satis- 
fied by  the  Cross,  or,  if  not  by  the  Cross,  by  the 
Ascension,  —  he  "  will  draw  all  men  unto  (not 
toward)  himself  "  (John  xii.  32).  Only  invinci- 
ble prepossession  could  imagine  this  pledge  to 
be  satisfied  by  race  evolution,  instead  of  by  the 
lifting  up  of  each  individual  soul  to  the  side  of 
the  Master. 

Finally,  the  limitless  outstretch  of  his  plan 
and  ambition  is  given  voice  in  the  farewell 
commission  which  enjoined  the  apostles  to  go 
forward  with  his  work,  — to  "go  into  all  the 
world  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature  " 
(Mark  xvi.  15). 

It  is  not  here  pretended  even  to  outline  the 
argument  for  the  final  universal  victory  of  the 
GospeL  The  point  we  emphasize  is,  that  Jesus 
regarded  himself  as  sent  to  save  the  world,  — 
not  a  race,  not  a  generation,  not  a  class,  but 
mankind  past,  present,  and  future.  If  there 
are  those  professing  loyalty  to  him  who  cherish 
misgivings  as  to  his  ability  to  accomplish  so 


20  THE   SAVIOUR   OF  THE    WORLD. 

much,  let  us  hope  that  none  will  be  disposed  to 
cast  suspicion  upon  the  sincerity  of  his  aspira- 
tions or  the  universality  of  his  sympathies.  He 
has  sketched  for  us  his  own  portrait  in  that  of 
the  good  shepherd,  who  could  not  endure  to 
miss  even  one  lamb  from  his  flock,  but  persisted 
in  his  search  for  that  straying  one  "until  he 
found  it "  (Luke  xv.  4).  It  is  certain  that  this 
compassionate,  Christ-taught  age  would  not 
tolerate  any  would-be  saviour  who  did  not  at 
least  yearn  for  the  recovery  of  all  the  lost. 

4.  Jesus  affirms  his  own  peerlessness  and  in- 
dispensableness  in  terms  that  cannot  be  mis- 
taken:  "Every  one  that  hath  heard  from  the 
Father  and  hath  learned  cometh  unto  me  "  (John 
vi.  45).  That  is,  along  the  line  of  his  spirit- 
ual evolution,  however  originated  and  promoted, 
every  man,  taught  of  God,  comes  at  length  to 
Jesus,  —  comes,  so  to  say,  to  complete  the 
higher,  the  university  course  of  heavenly  in- 
struction, whose  rudiments  may  have  been 
learned  elsewhere. 

"I  am  the  way,  and  the  truth,  and  the  life. 
No  man  cometh  to  the  Father  but  by  me  "  (John 
xiv.  6).  That  is,  through  the  eyes  of  Christ 
men  gain  their  first  transfiguring  sight  of  the 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  21 

Immense  Fact,  through  the  vitalizing  touch  of 
his  spirit  they  first  effectually  lay  hold  of  the 
Father.  Towards  the  Father  by  other  assist- 
ance, it  may  be :  to  the  Father  only  by  his. 

Not  merely  to  start,  but  also  to  perfect  the 
higher  life,  through  all  the  processes  of  its 
growth,  is  Christ  indispensable.  "As  the 
branch  cannot  bear  fruit  of  itself  except  it 
abide  in  the  vine,  so  neither  can  ye  except  ye 
abide  in  me.  .  .  .  Without  me  ye  can  do  noth- 
ing "  (John  XV.  4,  5).  Strong  words,  easily  trav- 
estied and  made  grotesque,  but  containing  at 
their  lowest  valuation  an  amazing  claim  of  pre- 
eminence and  universal  serviceableness. 

As  indicative  of  the  uniqueness  and  exalta- 
tion of  his  position :  "  One  is  your  master,  and 
all  ye  are  brethren  "  (Matt,  xxiii.  8,  10).  If 
"all  ?/e,"  then  all  men;  if  ''your  master,"  then 
the  master  of  all  other  masters. 

He  rejects  the  hollow  homage  of  those  who 
seek  to  flatter  him  with  "Lord,  Lord,"  not, 
however,  because  he  declines  the  title,  but 
because  of  the  falseness  of  their  motive.  Else- 
where he  frankly  claims  that  distinction  :  "  Ye 
call  me  master  and  lord,  .  .  .  and  so  I  am  " 
(John  xiii.  13). 


22  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

He  constantly  claims  for  his  words  and  acts 
the  authority  of  God  Himself,  who  operates 
through  him.  Not  in  his  own  strength  but  in 
God's  he  challenges  the  world.  "  My  doctrine 
is  not  mine  but  His  that  sent  me  '  (John  yii.  16). 
"  Neither  came  I  of  myself  but  He  sent  me  "  (John 
viii.  42).  "The  Son  can  do  nothing  of  himself 
but  what  he  seeth  the  Father  do  "  (John  v.  19). 
"He  that  honoreth  not  the  Son  honoreth  not 
the  Father  "  (John  v.  23).  "  He  that  despiseth 
me  despiseth  Him  that  sent  me  "  (Luke  x.  16). 
"As  the  Father  knoweth  me,  even  so  know  I 
the  Father  "  (John  x.  15).  "  No  man  knoweth 
who  the  Father  is  but  the  Son,  and  he  to  whom 
the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  him  "  (Luke  x.  22). 

Thus  intimately  related  to  the  Father,  he  is 
identified  also  with  the  fortunes  of  men.  He 
himself  must  share  their  sympathies  and  mingle 
with  their  destinies.  He  asserts  a  perpetual 
claim  upon  their  remembrance  (Luke  xxii.  19). 
Belief  in  him  is  a  condition  of  salvation  (John 
iii.  36).  Apparently  a  certain  assimilation  of 
the  very  substance  of  his  personality  is  requisite 
(John  vi.  53).  The  church  is  to  be  his  church 
(Matt.  xvi.  18).  He  must  be  confessed  before  men 
(Matt.  X.  32).     For  his  sake  disciples  should  be 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  23 

ready  to  sacrifice  life  itself  (Mark  viii.  35).  Dis- 
cipleship  consists  in  following  Mm  (John  xii.  26). 
And,  finally,  before  Mm  shall  the  nations  be 
gathered  for  judgment,  and  he  is  to  pronounce 
the  penalty  and  assign  the  reward,  according  to 
men's  actual  or  implied  treatment  of  Mm  (Matt. 
XXV.  31-46),  where,  although  it  is  clear  that  he 
means  to  accent  principles  rather  than  mere 
personal  loyalty  to  himself,  it  is  not  less  clear 
that  he  assumes  for  himself  not  only  a  con- 
spicuous, but  the  capital  and  commanding  func- 
tion in  the  great  assize. 

Without  pausing  to  compute  the  precise  range 
of  each  of  these  extraordinary  claims  we  cannot 
evade  their  general  and  consistent  impression. 
Of  all  great  teachers  Jesus  was  assuredly  the 
most  egoistic.  He  made  his  personality  an 
integral  part  of  his  system.  He  did  not  trust 
the  truth  to  its  own  merits  merely,  but  came  to 
bear  witness  to  it  (John  xviii.  37).  The  tone  of 
"  authority  "  which  was  marked  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  was  present  in  all  his  acts  and 
utterances.  His  manner,  without  being  arro- 
gant, was  strongly  assertative ;  and  we  may  say 
of  his  whole  style  and  assumption  that  "never 
man  spake  like  this  man." 


24  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

The  proof,  then,  is  ample:  there  is  here  no 
chance  of  mistake.  Jesus  did  unquestionably 
claim  to  be  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  Assum- 
ing the  validity  of  the  Gospel  narratives  candid 
exegesis  can  yield  no  other  conclusion.  We 
cannot  say  that  the  conclusion  rests  upon  slav- 
ish adhesion  to  the  letter  of  a  few  texts,  for  the 
texts  are  not  few,  and  the  interpretation  is  not 
founded  on  uncertain  words  alone,  but  upon  the 
total  effect  and  tendency  of  the  record.  We 
cannot  say,  These  claims  are  metaphorical,  or 
they  are  instances  of  oriental  over -statement, 
and  therefore  of  slight  significance,  without 
employing  canons  which  evaporate  the  whole 
narrative  into  mere  speculative  mist.  We 
cannot,  by  repudiating  the  Fourth  Gospel  as 
merely  a  piece  of  fond  theorizing  by  some 
visionary  and  sentimental  convert  of  a  post- 
apostolic  period,  clear  the  way  for  a  strictly 
"  naturalistic "  conception  of  Christ,  for  the 
essential  claim  above  developed  remains  in  the 
other  evangelists. 

A  single  alternative  is  presented:  either  to 
cast  overboard  the  whole  story  as  incredible,  — 
the  Rationalistic  verdict;  or,  accepting  it  as 
historically  valid,  to  attempt  to  make  it  intcUi- 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  25 

gible  to  ourselves,  by  tracing  its  philosophy 
and  its  practical  applications,  —  the  rational 
procedure. 

III.  —  The  Claim  Admissible. 

It  is  natural  that  this  claim  by  one  member 
of  the  human  family  of  precedence  and  pre- 
eminence over  all  the  others  should  not  pass 
without  challenge.  It  seems  at  first  an  immod- 
est and  exorbitant  pretension.  We  are  better 
pleased  with  the  self-effacement  of  Confucius, 
the  silence  of  Buddha,  the  semi-pessimism  of 
Socrates.  Nevertheless  we  cannot  decline  to 
inspect  the  credentials  which  accompany  the 
claim,  or  to  suspend  judgment  till  the  evidence 
is  in. 

There  are  two  influences  before  which  the 
reluctance  of  mere  prepossession  must  give  way 
in  favor  of  the  claim  of  Jesus. 

First  of  these  is  the  impregnable  testimony  of 
the  records.  As  criticism  has  not  been  able  to 
confute  the  authenticity  and  genuineness  of 
these  records  as,  on  the  whole,  trustworthy  eye- 
witness accounts  of  real  occurrences ;  as  exege- 
sis  cannot   explain   out   of   those    records   the 


26  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

unmistakable  attitude  of  dominance  and  author- 
ity which  Jesus  assumed ;  so  the  character  and 
career  of  Jesus  make  it  insupposable  that  he 
was  romancing  in  these  professions,  or  that  he 
was  temporarily  "beside  himself,"  or  was  other- 
wise misleading  or  misled  in  his  self-represen- 
tation. The  mind  of  Jesus  was  too  calm  and 
quick  to  leave  him  the  prey  of  weak  illusions. 
The  candor,  the  integrity  of  Jesus  are  pledges 
that  he  would  not  utter  what,  unless  it  were 
sublimely  true,  could  only  be  pitiful  and  sui- 
cidal bombast.  Where  the  alternative  of  faith 
in  seemingly  unlikely  doctrines  is  such  a  rejec- 
tion of  historical  data  as  proclaims  a  far  more 
irrational  confidence  in  the  a  priori  assumptions 
of  the  intellect,  —  where  refusal  to  be  bound  by 
adequate  testimony  amounts  to  saying,  "If  the 
facts  do  not  agree  with  my  opinions,  then  so 
much  the  worse  for  the  facts,"  —  truly  reason- 
able minds  cannot  long  waver  in  doubt.  The 
kernel  of  the  matter  is  this :  It  is  far  more 
pro))able  that  Jesus  was  justified  in  his  claim, 
than  that  he  should  deceive  or  be  deceived 
about   it. 

But,   secondl}^   it  must  be  granted  that  this 
claim  of  Jesus  seems   much   less   absurd   and 


THE   SAVIOUR   OF  THE   WORLD.  27 

incredible  in  our  day  than  it  might  have  seemed 
when  he  announced  it,  a  mere  youth,  in  Pales- 
tine. Nineteen  centuries  have  done  a  great 
deal  for  the  reputation  of  that  youth.  The 
figure  of  Jesus  has  not  been  obscured  by  the 
mighty  growths  of  the  ages.  We  have  often 
found  him  right,  against  the  world.  His  literal 
words  have  not  seldom  brought  us  closer  to 
truth  than  all  the  attempted  accommodations  of 
them  to  the  taste  or  convenience  of  men.  After 
so  many  futile  experiments  and  efforts  to 
"climb  up  some  other  way,"  the  discovery  that 
the  Gospel  is  actually  the  "  power  of  God  unto 
salvation  "  is  reflecting  back  a  deeper  and  wider 
authority  upon  the  man  of  Nazareth.  The  tide 
which  swelled  from  the  foot  of  the  Cross  has 
rolled  down  the  centuries,  and  now  laps  with 
its  skirmish  waves  the  shores  of  every  land, 
without  symptom  of  ebb  or  exhaustion.  The 
Pentecostal  Word,  addressing  at  this  moment 
nearly  five  hundred  peoples  and  tribes  "  each  in 
their  own  tongue, "  and  the  spirit  of  the  Master 
re-embodied  in  thousands  of  evangelists  who  are 
yielding  up  their  lives  to  "  preach  the  Gospel  to 
every  creature  "  in  his  name,  prove  that  he  was 
not   an   ephemeral   incident   but   a   permanent 


28  THE   SAVIOUR  OF   THE   WORLD. 

factor  in  the  world's  regeneration,  as  he  claimed 
to  be.  And  while  human  benefactors  are  mul- 
tiplying in  every  nation,  and  a  countless  host 
find  their  hearts  burning  with  desire  like  Jesus 
to  "go  about  doing  good,"  these  happy  omens 
are  everywhere  being  accompanied  with  a 
stronger  emphasis,  a  more  intelligent,  more 
dignified,  more  vital  emphasis  upon  allegiance 
to  Jesus  as  the  true  captain  of  our  salvation. 
At  a  hopeless  disadvantage  are  those  who  wish 
to  limit  the  function  of  Jesus  to  that  of  a  Name, 
a  Memory,  a  one-time  Fact,  and  fail  to  recog- 
nize his  vital  connection  with  his  disciples  as 
Lord  and  Saviour.  And  where  history  has  al- 
ready done  so  much  to  justify  his  claims,  faith 
can  readily  do  the  rest.  It  would  seem  that 
only  those  who  know  nothing  or  care  nothing 
for  this  splendid  vindication  can  now  refuse 
to  "crown  him  lord  of  all." 

This  Manual  is  written  in  simple  fidelity  to 
the  claim  of  Jesus  to  be  the  world's  Saviour. 
It  is  written,  also,  in  the  confidence  that,  since 
God  has  chosen  that  plan,  there  must  be  pro- 
found reasons  for  His  selection  of  one  man  to 
be  the  guide  and  helper  of  all  his  brethren.  An 
attempt  is  here  made  to  indicate  some  of  those 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  29 

reasons,  by  a  study  of  the  nature  of  man,  the 
problem  of  his  evolution,  and  the  fitness  of 
Jesus  to  meet  an  actual  need.  A  full  treatment 
of  so  fundamental  a  theme  would,  of  course,  far 
exceed  the  limits  of  these  brief  pages,  as  well 
as  the  capacity  of  their  author.  Such  outline 
suggestions  as  may  here  properly  be  offered, 
will  be  grouped  under  these  several  heads. 
Why  a  Saviour  ?  How  a  Saviour  ?  What 
A  Saviour! 

lY.  _  Why  a  Saviour  ? 

A  clear  and  rational  answer  to  this  question 
is  specially  incumbent  upon  those  who  profess 
liberal  or  "  advanced  "  theological  opinions. 

We  know  the  philosophy  by  which  Evange- 
lical dogmatics  vindicate  the  necessity  for  a 
Saviour.  If  we  grant  their  premises  we  must 
admit  the  argument  is  very  clear-cut  and  logi- 
cal. By  sin,  they  say,  man  has  gotten  himself 
into  a  hopeless  predicament.  He  has  created  a 
debt  which  it  is  impossible  for  him  ever  to  dis- 
charge by  liquidation,  and  the  proper  penalty  is 
endless  imprisonment  and  torture.  He  cannot 
recover  himself  because  the  fatal  effect  of  his 


30  THE   SAVIOUR   OF  THE   WORLD. 

wrong-doing  has  been  both  to  pervert  the  judg- 
ment and  to  paralyze  the  will,  so  that  he  cannot 
if  he  would,  and  would  not  if  he  could,  turn 
about  and  serve  God.  But  even  if  he  were  able 
at  once  to  eschew  all  evil  and  practice  all  right- 
eousness, that  would  not  wipe  out  the  record  of 
the  past;  nor  can  he  accumulate  any  stock  of 
merit  to  stand  off  as  a  sinking-fund  against  the 
old  debts,  for  it  is  no  more  than  his  duty  to  do 
each  moment  all  that  God  requires,  and  there 
is  no  surplusage  after  each  day's  payment  of 
service  is  met.  Thus,  on  one  hand,  he  is  beset 
by  the  blight  and  pressure  of  infinite  Justice, 
which  demands  full  satisfaction,  under  penalty 
of  final  doom  for  every  affront  to  the  majesty  of 
Divine  Law.  On  the  other  hand,  he  is  a  slave 
to  his  sins,  and  a  hopeless  debtor  to  his  past, 
without  power  or  right  to  effect  the  smallest 
mitigation  of  his  sentence. 

In  this  dilemma,  it  is  obvious  that  salvation 
can  come  only  through  a  Saviour.  It  is  not 
clear,  indeed,  what  any  Saviour  can  do  for  him 
under  such  conditions  without  abrogating  some- 
how the  supposed  claims  of  Justice.  But  it  is 
clear  that  the  sinner  himself  is  helpless;  and 
as  the  conception  of  the  divine  government  is 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  31 

mechanical,  it  becomes  easy  to  imagine  a 
mechanical  remedy  applied  in  ceremonious  def- 
erence to  the  scheme.  Thus  a  Divine  Being, 
even  the  Eternal  Deity,  intervenes  to  quench 
the  claims  of  justice  by  himself  sustaining  the 
penalty  which  guilty  men  have  incurred,  and  to 
clothe  them  with  his  own  infinite  merits  so  as 
to  expunge  their  guilt  and  make  them  "  whiter 
than  snow." 

If  we  repudiate  this  theory  as  irrational  and 
childish  we  are  bound  to  supplant  it  with  a 
better  one.  In  fact,  however,  the -natural  revolt 
against  a  presentation  so  discouraging  to  man 
and  so  discreditable  to  God  has  accentuated  two 
sentiments  which  tend  to  disincline  not  a  few 
to  the  whole  New  Testament  suggestion  of  sal- 
vation through  a  Saviour  sent  from  God. 

a.  First,  resenting  the  dogma  which  describes 
them  as  vitiated  through  sin  in  their  essential 
nature,  so  that  they  have  become  "wholly 
defiled  in  all  the  faculties  and  parts  of  soul  and 
body,"  "utterly  indisposed,  disabled,  and  made 
opposite  to  all  good,  and  wholly  inclined  to  all 
evil  "  (Westminster  Confession,  chap.  vi.  2,  4), 
men  have  come  to  lay  splendid  but  exorbitant 
stress   upon   the   dignity,    independence,    suffi- 


32  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

ciency  of  the  individual  life.  In  that  mood 
they  are  apt  to  bridle  at  any  offer  of  outside  aid 
as  impertinent  and  intrusive.  Especially  have 
the  growing  spirit  of  liberty  and  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  human  mind  under  the  spur  and 
privilege  of  freedom  kindled  self-confidence  and 
made  men  unwilling  to  accept  benefits  as  babes 
and  weaklings.  In  the  pride  of  his  power  and 
his  performance  a  strong  man  may  well  exclaim, 
What  need  have  I  of  a  Saviour  ?  Am  I  not 
capable  of  self-direction  ?  Do  I  not  know  what 
is  right  ?  I  will  not  surrender  my  will  to 
another.  I  will  be  the  architect  of  my  own 
spiritual  fortune  as  I  have  been  of  my  material 
success. 

This  is  good,  grand  in  its  royalty  of  manly 
self-reliance,  but  our  friend  does  not  mean  all 
he  says.  Absolute  independence,  single-handed 
conquest  of  the  universe,  is  more  than  any  man 
dreams  of.  We  profoundly  respect  his  spirited 
protest  against  the  mendicant,  crawling  posture 
of  what  is  sometimes  called  religion;  but  we 
are  sure  that  he  too  is  finite,  has  his  needs  and 
his  self-chosen  masters,  and  will  not  finally 
shut  the  door  in  the  face  of  any  genuine  friend- 
ship which  proffers  him  its  support. 


THE  SAVIOUK  OF  THE   WORLD.  33 

h.  With  a  large  circle  the  word  "culture" 
has  come  to  express  a  competing  and  superior 
aspiration  to  take  the  place  of  salvation.  But 
what  if  salvation  and  culture,  truly  defined,  are 
after  all  identical  ?  Salvation,  as  merely  an 
escape  from  the  deserved  penalties  of  our  mis- 
deeds, is  not  an  ambition  that  can  stir  the 
noblest  pulses  of  our  nature.  Neither  is  cul- 
ture, as  mere  belles  lettres,  refined  speech,  and 
polished  manners,  an  ideal  that  can  fully  satisfy 
our  highest  yearnings.  With  sounder  defini- 
tions, however,  it  will  not  be  difficult  to  make 
the  two  conceptions  match,  if  indeed  they  do 
not  melt  indistingiiishably  into  one  another. 

One  feature  of  the  culturist  philosophy,,  as 
commonly  affected,  stands  somewhat  in  the  way 
of  the  pretensions  of  Jesus.  It  is  that  which 
made  Matthew  Arnold,  as  its  chief  apostle, 
scoff  at  the  personal  allegiance  which  has 
flushed  the  hearts  of  millions  of  Christians  with 
proud  discipleship.  It  is  a  reluctance  to  agree 
to  any  standard  as  fixed,  or  any  ideas  as  settled, 
in  the  presumed  interest  of  open-mindedness 
and  progress.  It  is  a  benevolent  hospitality 
towards  all  truth  and  all  goodness,  which  fails 
to  discriminate  between  the   good,  the   better, 

3 


34  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

and  the  best,  and  brands  as  narrowness  and 
Jacobinism  all  energetic  fealty  to  a  chosen 
cause.  It  is  a  sort  of  indifferentism,  which 
finds  itself  equally  comfortable  and  at  home  in 
the  most  opposite  schools,  and  objects  to  the 
incisiveness  of  parties  or  sects  as  savoring  of 
Pharisaism.  With  a  consistency  which  adds 
little  merit  to  its  character,  it  puts  no  greater 
value  upon  life  than  upon  learning,  and  esteems 
manners  the  peer  of  both.  In  its  estimate  the 
scholar  rather  outvies  the  sage,  while  either 
overshadows  the  saint.  Especially  does  it  con- 
demn any  display  of  ardor,  as  the  fever  or  the 
fanaticism  of  ill-balanced  natures. 

Now  all  this,  and  much  more  like  it,  is  not 
so  bad  in  itself — for  it  is,  on  the  whole,  a 
rather  amiable  and  innocuous  extravagance  of 
moderation  —  as  it  is  in  the  resistance  it  offers 
to  the  influence  of  a  personal  Saviour.  Doubt- 
less with  many  it  is  a  mere  fad,  and  represents 
only  one  of  the  protean  and  evanescent  forms 
into  which  an  intrinsically  selfish  disposition 
translates  itself.  So  far  as  it  is  really  serious, 
however,  it  will  tend  to  counteract  its  own 
theory  by  the  very  enthusiasm  its  pursuit  may 
inspire;  and  when  it  discovers  itself  at  last  as 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF   THE   WORLD.  35 

a  Cause,  as  perhaps  a  personal  discipleship  to 
some  recognized  leader,  as  a  crusade  thrilled 
with  a  very  Philistine  zeal,  it  will  have  pre- 
pared the  way  for  a  welcome  to  the  mastership 
of  the  best  developed,  most  ripened,  and  most 
cultivated  soul  of  the  ages,  Jesus  who  was 
called  the  Christ.  There  are  many  school- 
masters that  lead  men  to  the  Gospel,  and  in  the 
end  culture  will  be  found  not  the  least  or  worst 
of  them  all. 

Y.  —  What  is  it  to  be  Saved  ? 

As  the  basis  of  our  attempted  answer  to  the 
question  of  this  chapter,  we  need  first  to  get  in 
mind  precisely  what  salvation  means,  what  it 
is  that  Jesus  is  supposed  to  accomplish  for  men. 
The  subject  has  been  well  and  amply  treated  in 
a  previous  volume  of  this  series.^  We  offer 
here  only  a  definition. 

Salvation  is,  of  course,  from  something. 
From  what  ?  The  prevailing  theories  say,  spe- 
cifically, from  the  punishment  due  to  sin,  from 
"hell."  With  more  breadth  and  thoroughness 
we  might  say,  generically,  from  all  the  conse- 

1  No.  T.  *'  Salvation."    By  Orello  Cone,  D.D. 


36  THE   SAVIOUR   OF  TPIE  WORLD. 

quences  of  sin.  To  this,  howeA'er,  we  must 
addj  from  sin  itself,  whether  regarded  as  the 
act  or  the  impulse. 

Our  definition  is  not  so  different  from  the 
usual  one  as  may  be  fancied.  It  is  similar  in 
principle,  but  it  is  more  radical  and  more 
intelligent.  What  we  equally  see  is  that 
through  his  errors  and  iniquities  man  is  irt 
trouble.  Salvation  is  the  getting  him  out  of 
his  trouble.  To  the  average  thought,  that  will 
be  adequately  effected  by  securing  him  entrance 
after  death  into  a  safe  and  splendid  place  — 
heaven;  which  involves  his  rescue  from  a  hor- 
rible place  —  hell,  into  which  he  was  liable 
to  be  thrown  without  remedy.  To  our  thought, 
the  trouble  is  in  the  man  himself,  and  can  be 
cured  only  by  bringing  him  back  and  out  and 
up  to  the  normal  life  of  a  child  of  God. 

In  a  single  word,  salvation  is  a  synonym  of 
perfection,  the  full  and  glorious  evolution  of 
human  nature  into  its  highest,  its  divine  estate. 
Nor  need  we  pause  for  any  petty  dispute  as 
to  the  meaning  of  perfection.  Matthew  Arnold's 
idea  of  it,  from  the  standpoint  of  culture,  as 
"an  increased  spiritual  activity,  having  for  its 
characters  increased  sweetness,  increased  light. 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF   THE   WORLD.  37 

increased  life,  increased  sympathy,"  —  if  by  the 
excessively  modest  participle  "  increased  "  we 
may  understand,  as  it  seems  we  must,  matured, 
ripened,  unalloyed,  supreme,  —  will  answer 
very  well  also  from  the  standpoint  of  religion. 
We  should  perhaps  prefer  to  say,  —  in  loyalty 
to  our  habits  of  spiritual  thought  and  expres- 
sion, —  that  man  will  be  perfect  when  the  God- 
hood  within  him  is  fully  formed  and  sovereign ; 
when  all  the  features  of  the  divine  image  which 
constitute  him  an  heir  of  heaven,  a  scion  of 
eternity,  a  child  of  the  Father,  are  brought  out, 
balanced,  and  brightened,  so  that  he  becomes, 
according  to  his  scale  and  calibre,  a  regnant 
member  of  the  universal  hierarchy,  of  which 
God  is  at  once  the  norm  and  the  everlasting, 
unapproachable  Head.  The  lines  which  that 
development  must  take  we  find  in  Jesus,  so 
that  to  our  Christian  type  of  thinking,  perfec- 
tion or  salvation  is  simply  to  become  like 
Christ.  But  this,  in  different  terms,  is  sub- 
stantially equivalent  to  Mr.  Arnold's  phrases 
quoted  above.  In  plain  words,  a  saved  man  is 
a  man  at  his  best,  in  the  completest  use  and 
enjoyment  of  all  his  powers.  He  is  a  man 
getting  the  most  out  of  life,  because  he  lives  in 


38  THE   SAVIOUR   OF  THE   WORLD. 

harmony  with  realities,  bends  gracefully  to  the 
inevitable,  and  utilizes  promptly  the  available. 
He  is  a  man  who  has  decided  that  it  is  better  to 
side  with  God  than  to  fight  against  him;  better 
to  conform  to  Nature  than  to  get  caught  in 
her  remorseless  wheels;  better  to  live  in  light 
than  darkness,  in  peace  than  in  strife,  and  who 
therefore  comes  early  into  his  inheritance  as  a 
prince  of  the  house  of  God. 

We  employ  here  untechnical  terms,  in  order 
to  clarify  and  emphasize  the  fact,  that  salvation 
in  any  true  view  of  it  is  not  an  unintelligible 
mystery,  nor  a  mechanical  contrivance  against 
which  freedom  and  sanity  revolt,  nor  a  fell 
necessity  to  be  avoided  as  long  as  possible  and 
embraced  at  last  only  because  the  alternative  is 
even  worse;  but  is  the  equivalent  of  progress, 
of  happiness,  of  personal  power,  of  that  enlarge- 
ment of  capability  and  of  outlook  which  makes 
man  the  true  lord  of  creation;  and  therefore 
something  to  be  prized,  to  be  eagerly  sought,  to 
be  secured  at  any  cost  as  the  pearl  of  greatest 
price. 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  39 


YL  —  The  Problem. 

Now,  understanding  salvation  to  be  humanity 
raised  to  its  highest  possible  powers,  and  assum- 
ing the  Father's  benevolent  purpose  to  push 
men  forward  to  that  destiny,  how  should  he 
proceed  ?  In  particular,  would  he  have  occa- 
sion to  employ  the  offices  of  such  a  Saviour  as 
Jesus  represented  himself  to  be  ?  In  other 
terms,  how  can  the  function  claimed  by  Jesus 
be  fitted  into  the  scheme  of  universal  law  and 
natural  development  with  which  recent  science 
and  philosophy  have  acquainted  us  ?  This  form 
of  inquiry  seizes  boldly,  I  think,  the  inmost 
pith  and  point  of  the  prepossession  which  some 
feel  against  such  a  mission  as  Jesus  sought  to 
achieve. 

Does  there  exist  in  the  nature  of  things  or 
in  the  nature  of  man  any  necessity  for  the 
services  of  a  universal  Saviour  ? 

An  assumption  of  wide  authority  in  present- 
day  thinking,  which  is  taken  to  have  intuitive, 
axiomatic  force,  is  this :  We  need  not  expect 
God  to  do  for  man  what  he  has  made  man  capa- 
ble of  doing  for  himself.     The  ground  of  this 


40  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

canon  seems  to  lie  in  a  prior  assumption,  that 
the  Creator  will  not  stultify  himself,  will  not 
retract  or  violate  his  own  plans.  If  he  has 
lodged  a  capacity  in  man,  that  can  only  signify 
that  he  intends  man  to  do  something  with  the 
capacity,  the  thing  for  which  it  is  fitted.  The 
ultimate  accomplishment  of  that  thing  is  pro- 
vided for  and  guaranteed  in  the  endowment.  If 
afterwards  he  takes  the  task  off  man's  hands, 
the  bestowal  of  useless  capacity  was  without 
excuse.  Not  even  infinite  Resource  is  entitled 
to  squander  itself.  The  logic  applies  not  only 
to  the  event,  but  to  the  time  and  manner  of  its 
appearance.  If  it  were  desirable  that  the  event 
should  come  to  pass  in  any  other  way  or  at 
another  time  than  those  in  which  it  would  regu- 
larly be  produced  by  the  interaction  of  the 
capacity  and  its  conditions  (all  supposititiously 
known  to  the  Bestower)  then  the  capacity  or 
conditions  should  have  been  adjusted  at  the 
start  to  that  desideratum,  or  the  promise  of  the 
outcome  have  been  withheld  by  withholding 
the  capacity.  It  is  insupposable  that  God 
should  blunder,  or  should  retreat  from  any 
utterance  he  has  put  forth. 

Therefore,  if  man  has  the  power  (under  exist- 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  41 

ing  conditions)  of  self-salvation,  without  other 
outside  aid  than  is  involved  in  the  laws  and 
opportunities  of  growth  by  culture,  then  we  may 
be  sure  no  such  superfluous  aid  has  been 
extended.  Per  contra^  if  a  Saviour  has  been 
sent,  it  must  be  there  was  a  work  for  him  to  do, 
which  in  his  absence  would  have  failed. 

Such  is  a  very  popular  and  somewhat  magis- 
terial style  of  reasoning.  We  must  admit  that 
it  has  certain  force  and  validity.  In  one  direc- 
tion, however,  it  needs  to  be  guarded  against 
fallacy.  It  is  not  easy  to  set  speculative  limits 
to  the  expansion  of  the  human  powers  by  mere 
interior  development.  Each  man's  nature  seems 
indefinitely  elastic,  and,  given  time  enough, 
capable  of  all  things.  The  mind  of  Shakspeare 
is  perhaps  the  mind  of  any  boor,  only  in  a  more 
advanced  state  of  evolution.  We  cannot  fix 
upon  any  generic  difference  between  genius  and 
mediocrity.  There  is  only  more  of  one  than  of 
the  other,  more  apparently  of  bulk  and  more  of 
intensity.  The  science  of  our  time  has  been 
accumulated  item  by  item  from  the  separate 
labors  of  a  host  of  del  vers  and  climbers. 
Largely  it  is  the  product  of  skilled  observation, 
partly  of  expert  judgment  in  the  choice   and 


42  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

origination  of  hypotheses,  and  in  determining 
eligible  means  for  testing  them.  At  last  we 
have  the  amazing  mass,  not  a  single  peak,  but 
range  upon  range  of  Himalayan  heights,  piled 
up  as  it  were  by  teaspoonfuls.  With  ample 
leisure  and  competent  faculties  the  sum  of  it  is 
more  than  any  mind  can  master  in  a  mortal 
life ;  and  it  is  growing  faster  than  we  can  follow 
it.  Yet  if  we  ask.  Why  could  not  any  individ- 
ual, working  up  from  the  very  bottom  all  alone, 
without  guidance  or  aid  of  any  sort,  save  what 
the  light  within  him  supplied,  make  at  length 
for  himself  all  the  discoveries  which  have  ever 
been  made,  and  verify  all  the  data  now  accepted, 
only  give  him  time  enough,  —  though  we  cannot 
deny  the  possihillty  of  such  a  performance,  we 
feel  that  the  question  is  preposterous.  Prac- 
tically, w^e  see  that  eternity  would  be  too  short 
for  the  most  gifted  vision  to  see  for  itself 
everything  there  is  to  see. 

Yet  in  this  instance  who  can  say  what  the 
ca'pacity  lodged  in  mind  is  equal  to,  so  as  to 
decide  what  supplementary  aids  Divine  power 
is  permitted  to  afford,  to  secure  a  given  result  ? 
Manifestly  time  is  an  element  even  in  His  plans 
to  whom  a  thousand  years  are  as  a  day.     There 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  43 

is  a  possibility  that  an  oak  might  grow  from  an 
acorn  dropped  into  a  shallow  crevice  of  solid 
rock,  by  the  slow  nourishment  of  air  and  moist- 
ure, and  the  accretions  of  dust  about  its  naked 
roots,  together  with  the  crumbling  bit  by  bit  of 
the  boulder.  But  we  could  not  thence  argue 
that  Providence  would  never  furnish  more  favor- 
able conditions.  Precisely  so,  because  there 
may  seem  a  metaphysical  possibility  that  the 
soul  of  a  man  should  evolve  "  the  wisdom  that 
is  from  above,"  and  the  moral  muscle  which 
defies  temptation,  simply  from  its  own  study 
and  experience,  in  the  absence  of  any  superior 
counsellor  or  exemplar,  we  cannot  insist  that 
the  schoolmaster  and  the  hero  are  an  imperti- 
nent superfluity.  Culture  is  capable  of  much, 
but  left  to  itself  would  perhaps  be  too  tedious 
for  the  patience  of  average  humanity. 

Besides,  it  should  be  added,  there  is  in  man 
not  only  a  capacity  for  self-help,  but  a  capacity 
also  for  helping  others,  which,  by  the  very 
logic  we  are  estimating,  must  have  been  in- 
tended for  use.  We  are  not,  therefore,  justified 
on  any  ground  in  pretending  to  entire  self-suffi- 
ciency, or  in  sneering  at  the  office  of  the 
reformer,  the  philanthropist,  the  Saviour  who 


44  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

seeks,  in  the  spirit  of  a  noble  altruism,  to  be  in 
some  sense  and  measure  his  brother's  keeper. 

The  problem  before  us,  then,  is  not  whether 
in  an  absolute  way  it  can  be  proved  that  man- 
kind could  not  possibly  have  got  along  without 
Jesus ;  but  whether  his  proffer  of  friendship  is 
not  quite  analogous  to  the  familiar  processes 
of  Providence,  and  clearly  advantageous  to  a 
struggling  race,  whose  destiny  is  thereby  ex- 
alted and  hastened.  I  think  we  may  satisfy 
ourselves,  without  leaving  the  broad  and  open 
path  of  common  experience,  that  there  was 
room  and  a  demand  for  precisely  the  work  which 
Jesus  undertook. 

yil.  —  Man  Needs  Salvation. 

The  first  and  foundation  fact  to  be  emphasized 
in  estimating  the  value  of  the  services  of  Jesus 
is  this:  Man  is  not  saved,  and  it  is  to  his 
interest,  and  the  interest  of  "the  whole  crea- 
tion," which  "groans  and  labors  in  pain"  on 
his  account,  to  get   saved. 

On  the  threshold  of  any  investigation  into  the 
actual  state  of  men  we  are  met  with  the  hideous 
and  appalling  fact  of  sin.     The  thing  may  be 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  45 

variously  regarded  as  error  or  disease  or  imper- 
fection, or  wanton  criminality ;  in  any  guise  it 
calls  for  vigorous  corrective  treatment. 

a.  If  we  diagnose  it  as  ignorance  merely,  we 
may  look  upon  it  with  more  complacency,  and 
treat  it  as  a  very  venial  offence.  In  our  soft- 
ness and  pity  we  must  not  forget,  however,  that 
ignorance  may  itself  become  crime,  and  that 
stupidity  is  no  protection  against  the  penalties 
of  violated  law.  Wilful  ignorance  is  self-con- 
demnation to  darkness  and  exile.  Nature  does 
not  force  her  treasures  upon  shut  eyes,  nor 
clamor  her  psalms  into  stopped  ears.  The 
mind  of  some  men  is  like  a  splendid  palace, 
filled  with  the  glories  of  art  and  literature,  and 
the  memorials  of  heroism,  of  which  only  the 
servant's  kitchen  and  the  stable  are  ever  opened 
to  view.  Imagine  an  eagle,  made  to  look  the 
sun  in  the  eye,  trying  to  flap  about  in  the 
dark  like  a  bat;  or  a  nightingale  affecting  the 
screech  of  a  peacock,  —  that  is  man  floundering 
in  the  mire  of  ignorance.  Salvation  for  him 
in  that  estate  is  science.  It  is  the  oculist  skill 
which  draws  the  curtain  and  cleanses  the  pane, 
that  he  may  see  what  light  is  and  what  it 
reveals;  it   is  the  aurist   art  which   lifts   the 


46  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

gates  and  drenches  his  barren  soul  with  music. 
Nature  is  rich,  and  ready  to  make  any  man  her 
prot^g^  and  heir-apparent.  Ignorance  is  the 
fool  "who  mocks  at  her  advances  and  thinks 
himself  smart  in  dodging  her  rescuing  hand. 
"This  is  the  damnation,"  said  Jesus,  "that 
light  is  come  into  the  world,  and  men  loved 
darkness  rather  than  light."  From  that  des- 
perate plight  does  it  need  any  argument  to 
prove  that  man  needs  to  be  reclaimed  ? 

h.  If  we  interpret  sin  as  disease^  then  it 
comes  to  us  that  salvation  is  a  word  closely 
allied  in  its  origin  with  a  word  which  signifies 
health,  —  the  root  of  the  word  salubrity.  Say 
that  the  sinner  is  an  invalid,  suffering,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  the  pangs  and  perils 
of  interior  corruption.  In  that  state  he  is  a 
burden  to  himself  and  a  terror  to  his  fellows, 
for  all  sin-sickness  is  both  infectious  and  con- 
tagious. (Thank  God  that  health  is  also  self- 
propagating  !)  The  sick  man  is  a  prisoner,  — ■ 
the  prey  in  his  cell  of  evil  germs  that  find  his 
condition  fat  and  tender  to  their  tooth.  This 
is  hell,  —  not  a  dungeon  where  a  fierce  Tyrant 
incarcerates  those  who  offend  him,  but  the  hole 
into  which   the   self-poisoned   sinner  has   put 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  47 

himself  by  his  abuse.  Well,  the  way  in  is  the 
way  out !  The  world  is  a  hospital,  and  all  men 
are  patients.  True  enough.  Then  they  need 
medicine,  diet,  exercise;  need  to  be  coddled 
and  stimulated  until  normal  energies  can  assert 
themselves.  Let  the  treatment  be  heroic  if 
necessary.  Often  pain  can  only  be  cured  by 
more  pain,  as  fire  draws  fire,  or  a  blister  on 
the  surface  relieves  congestion  and  inflamma- 
tion within.  The  torpor  of  conscience  is  not 
unlike  the  lethargy  of  morphine,  only  to  be 
broken  by  resolute  shakings  and  enforced 
activities  against  the  sufferer's  drowsy  protest. 
Classify  the  invalid  where  you  will,  his  sin  is 
morbid,  maggoty,  and  needs  a  thorough  purg- 
ing. Do  not  think  to  secure  the  sinner  immu- 
nity from  the  Saviour's  visit  on  the  plea  that 
his  distemper  needs  only  the  physician's,  not 
the  preacher's  craft,  for  is  He  not  the  great 
Physician  who  restores  to  sanity  and  perfect 
soundness  those  who  undergo  his  treatment  ? 

c.  Perhaps  you  prefer  to  describe  sin  as 
imperfection  merely;  to  say  that  man's  blem- 
ishes are  not  those  of  an  ideal  fallen,  twisted, 
shattered,  but  rather  the  rawness,  awkward- 
ness, boniness  of  a  gosling  state,  an  unfledged 


48  THE  SAVIOUR  0¥  THE  WORLD. 

but  improving  and  hopeful  stage.  True  again. 
And  we  will  not  be  so  ungracious  as  to  reflect 
upon  these  angularities  and  disproportions, 
considering  how  long  a  journey  up  the  incline 
of  evolution  man  has  already  come.  If  we  find 
him  brutish  we  will  recollect  that  he  was  once 

—  at  least  in  his  lineage  —  wholly  a  brute. 
But  we  do  not  see  more  clearly  the  wide  differ- 
ence between  what  he  is  and  what  he  was,  than 
between  what  he  is  and  what  he  may  be.  He 
has  made  good  progress,  but  we  are  impatient 
for  still  more.  As  an  embryo  he  needs  hatch- 
ing and  nursing  that  he  may  come  to  maturity. 
Salvation,  from  this  point  of  view,  means  food, 
training,  discipline,  culture,  evolution.  It 
means  the  perfecting  of  that  which  is  confessedly 
imperfect,  the  filling  of  emptiness,  the  refining, 
tuning,  mellowing  of  the  instrument,  the  pol- 
ishing of  crudities,  and  lopping  off  of  excres- 
cences, —  a  natural  and  rational  process,  which 
is  by  no  means  completed  when  the  faculties 
attain  a  state  of  equilibrium  and  self-mastery, 

—  which  implies  the  exit  of  sinning,  —  but, 
keeping  pace  with  the  enlarging  outlook  and 
infinite  possibilities  of  man,  may  be  prolonged 
through    eternity.     Yes,    say   that    man   is    a 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  49 

child,  a  suckling,  if  you  please,  and  that  his 
falls  are  nothing  more  than  incidents  in  the 
learning  to  walk,  yet  it  is  surely  not  a  final 
stage,  and  by  as  much  as  it  points  towards  a 
manlier  and  matarer  future,  it  emphasizes  the 
fact  we  are  asserting,  that  salvation  —  in  the 
sense  of  full-orbed  powers  —  is  what  we  need 
but  have  not  yet  achieved. 

d.  But  truly  none  of  these  views  penetrates 
to  the  lowest  root  of  sin  or  suggests  its  full 
significance.  It  is  a  deeper  view  which  regards 
sin,  not  with  mild  tolerance  as  ignorance,  nor 
with  mere  compassion  as  disease,  nor  with 
bustling  ministration  as  a  condition  of  baby- 
hood, but  also  with  abhorrence  and  loathing  as 
a  rebellion  against  law.  Man  is  ignorant,  but 
he  has  also  refused  to  go  to  school;  he  is  sick, 
but  partly  by  his  own  prodigal  excesses ;  he  is 
a  babe,  but  that  does  not  justifiy  his  imperious 
preference  for  being  lugged  about  in  nurse's 
arms,  rather  than  put  his  own  feet  to  the  floor. 
He  is  not  merely  the  pathetic  victim  of  the 
plague,  nor  an  inexpert  wayfarer  flung  down  by 
competitive  forces  that  handle  him  with  robber 
brutality,  violently  filching  his  substance,  and 
leaving  him  bruised  and  half  dead  upon  the 
4 


50  THE   SAVIOUR   OF   THE   WORLD. 

ground.  He  has  been  particeps  criminis,  tribu- 
tary to  the  transaction;  he  has  deliberately 
swallowed  the  poison  that  gripes  him,  has 
rushed  forewarned  into  the  ambush,  has  trifled 
with  and  squandered  his  opportunities.  The 
seminal  difficulty  is  with  his  will,  which  he  has 
wasted  and  weakened  by  wantonness,  or  rotted 
by  impure  indulgence.  He  is  sometimes  that 
prodigal  son,  who  clung  to  his  uncleanness 
long  after  he  must  have  learned  its  criminality ; 
who  did  not  stop  short  of  spending  the  last 
remnant  of  his  patrimony  in  the  bestial  revel, 
and  who,  as  poor  in  spirit  as  in  purse,  found 
courage  at  last  only  in  starvation  to  seek  a 
refuge  in  the  outraged  clemency  of  a  good 
father.  Here  is  a  case  which  cannot  well  tarry 
for  delicate  and  dilettanti  experiments  with 
sugar  of  milk  and  other  saccharine  remedies. 
To  be  worth  anything  to  himself  or  his  race 
this  man  needs  a  will  renewed,  a  purified 
heart,  a  kindled  aspiration.  He  is  a  sinn^, 
not  wholly  by  defect,  or  by  disease,  but  by 
desire  and  determination,  and  he  needs  pardon 
and  deliverance  from  his  demon,  and  a  com- 
mission from  on  high  to  newness  of  life.  And 
as  his  is  the  most  critical  and   characteristic 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  51 

type  of  human  distresses,  Jesus  did  wisely  when 
he  offered  himself  as  pre-eminently  a  Saviour 
from  sin,  above  all  from  wilful  and  deliberate 
sin. 

Is  not  this  a  universal  description  ?  Who  is 
he  to  whom  its  terms  do  not  apply  ?  Whether 
in  ignorance,  sickness,  imperfectness,  or  wan- 
tonness, all  have  "  sinned  and  come  short  of  the 
glory  "  of  the  possible  and  ideal  human  life. 
To  the  entire  race,  therefore,  and  not  merely 
to  any  class,  the  truth  belongs,  Man  needs 
salvation. 

VIII.  —  Men  cannot  save  Themselves. 

I  speak  here  of  the  individual  rather  than  of 
the  race.  The  proposition  is,  that  if  each  man 
were  left,  unbefriended,  to  the  mere  unfolding 
of  his  life  from  within,  wholly  denied  incentive 
or  assistance  from  without,  the  result  would  be 
relapse,  not  progress,  for  each  and  all.  Pro- 
gress, that  is,  salvation,  is  guaranteed  not  more 
by  the  vital  principle  within  than  by  a  well- 
adjusted  order  of  helps  from  without. 

This  lesson  we  may  read  in  Nature  at  large 
as   interpreted   by   recent   evolution    concepts. 


52  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE    WORLD. 

There  development  is  determined  and  directed 
not  more  by  special  characteristics  of  the  inte- 
rior life-force  than  by  the  play  and  pressure 
upon  it  of  the  exterior  environment.  The  law 
of  progress  is  framed  from  the  interaction  of 
these  mutually  resilient  factors.  Conditions 
alone  do  not  make  the  creature ;  neither  is  the 
creature  independent  of  conditions;  but  in  the 
matrix  of  auspicious  conditions  the  intrinsic 
active  principle  grows  to  more  and  more.  By 
this  law  man's  upward  movement  is  prescribed. 
While  never  the  helpless  puppet  of  his  situa- 
tion, he  invariably  reflects  his  situation.  To 
damn  him  it  is  often  enough  to  thrust  him 
down  among  hellish  agencies ;  to  save  him,  lift 
him  amid  heavenly  inspirations.  "Evolution- 
ists tell  us,"  says  Mr.  Drummond,  "that  by 
the  influence  of  environment  certain  aquatic 
animals  have  become  adapted  to  a  terrestrial 
mode  of  life. "  Even  so,  "  by  the  influence  of 
environment,"  by  the  friendship  of  Nature 
(which  is  the  embrace  of  God)  man  is  to  be 
exalted  from  the  terrestrial  to  the  celestial 
type.  Not  in  the  hermit  shell  of  attempted 
isolation,  but  through  the  social  incitements  of 
the  fraternity  of  Nature's  phenomena,  does  man 
find  real  liberty  and  real  life. 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  53 

Man  cannot,  if  he  would,  wholly  isolate  him- 
self, nor  shake  off  the  fellowship  of  his  sur- 
roundings. Even  the  atoms  have  their  likes 
and  dislikes,  their  traditions,  boon  compan- 
ions, and  brotherhoods.  Man  is  social  by 
nature,  and  the  bitterest  cynicism  will  not 
avail  to  dissolve  the  bonds  of  wedlock  which  by 
an  eternal  decree  have  mated  him  to  his  kind 
and  to  his  lot.  His  absorbent  faculties  draw 
moisture  from  the  very  atmosphere ;  the  wind- 
wafted  germs  of  human  custom  and  human 
activities,  however  he  may  try  to  put  distance 
between  himself  and  them,  will  lodge  and  fruc- 
tify unwittingly  in  his  bosom.  Lay  his  course 
as  he  may  the  winds  and  tides  will  not  be 
ignored,  and  will  deflect  him  towards  their 
lines.  History  is  deposited  within  him  at 
birth ;  the  past  claims  him  as  its  offspring ; 
and  current  ideas  and  institutions  and  modes 
touch  his  plastic  soul  with  moulding  fingers. 
The  stars  fight  for  him  or  against  him;  the 
Eternal  Spirit  and  the  spirit  of  his  times  com- 
bine to  "  shape  his  ends,  rough-hew  them  how 
he  will." 

More  than  this,  the  influences  that  beset  him 
are  friendly.     The   waves   of  natural  circum- 


54  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

stance  drift  succor  to  his  desert  shore.  He 
cannot  be  alone  for  the  Father  is  with  him. 
Nature  herself  is  moral  and  carries  a  God  with- 
in. The  "  Eternal  Energy  by  which  all  things 
proceed  "  pushes  along  her  tracks  His  purposes 
of  benevolence.  The  "  Power  not  ourselves  that 
makes  for  righteousness  "  is  no  far-off,  absen- 
tee arbiter,  but  incarnate  in  her  very  processes. 
So  Nature  in  her  humblest  as  in  her  showiest 
functions  mirrors  God.  Without  a  Revelation 
we  must  learn  some  time  that  it  is  better  to  do 
right  than  wrong,  just  from  the  nature  of 
things.  A  law  of  recompense  brings  home  to 
us  the  virtue  of  discovering  and  conforming  to 
the  plan  of  Nature.  There  is  a  way  that  goes 
smoothly ;  there  is  a  way  that  grates  and  chafes. 
There  is  a  way  to  utilize  vital  energy  to  gen- 
erate more  vital  energy,  and  create  health, 
muscle,  endurance;  there  is  a  way  that  ex- 
hausts the  energies  and  leaves  depletion  and 
decrepitude  behind.  An  ethical  impulse  directs 
the  whole  process  and  inevitably  lifts  the  eyes 
above  the  phenomena  to  the  supreme  Fact. 
The  universe  is  a  unit,  and  reflects  in  every 
phase  and  feature  the  designs  of  the  Creator. 
Suns  and  systems,  seed-time  and  harvest,  the 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  55 

law  of  gravitation,  the  song  of  birds,  the  heart- 
beat of  the  tides,  the  providences  of  history, 
the  slow  unfoldment  of  the  complex  from  the 
simple,  the  specific  from  the  generic,  the  high 
from  the  low,  —  all  facts,  all  forces,  are  priests 
or  acolytes  in  the  great  cathedral  of  creation. 
"The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and 
the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork.  There 
is  no  speech,  no  language;  their  voice  is  not 
heard.  But  their  line  is  gone  out  through  all 
the  earth,  and  their  words  to  the  end  of  the 
world."  If  there  were  no  other  Saviour  we 
must  still  see  in  this  beauteous  and  beneficent 
order  a  progressive  purpose,  and  feel  ourselves 
encompassed  by  omnipresent  Grace. 

Bound  thus  by  universal  laws  to  everlasting 
purposes,  we  see  how  futile  is  the  boast  of 
absolute  independence,  and  the  pompous  waiver 
of  all  sympathy  or  assistance.  Sinful  man, 
ignorant,  invalid,  fledgling,  or  rebel,  aspiring 
towards  deliverance  and  striving  towards  per- 
fection (which  is  salvation),  dare  not  stand 
apart,  spurning  the  uplifts  and  befriendings, 
which,  as  a  part  of  Nature,  and  a  member  of 
the  human  brotherhood,  are  proffered  him. 
Amid  so  many  willing  friends,   it  is   impious 


56  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

for  him  to  insist  on  holding  himself  aloof,  and 
pretending  to  attain  the  goal  without  thanks  to 
any.  In  fact,  let  him  be  never  so  perverse,  he 
is  not  left  alone,  for  God  is  "working  in  him 
both  to  will  and  to  do  his  good  pleasure. " 

IX.  —  Man  needs  a  Personal  Friend. 

What  next  ?  Standing  at  the  foot  of  the 
slope  of  his  divine  destiny,  and  without  ability 
in  himself  alone  to  make  the  ascent,  what  staff, 
what  guide,  what  supporting  shoulders  shall 
he  secure  ?  If  we  grant  the  aspiration  to  exist 
in  his  soul,  and  an  upward  gravitation  of 
Nature,  what  more  can  he  require  to  assure  a 
prosperous  journey  ? 

If  we  seek  the  answer  in  experience,  not  in 
mere  mystifying  speculation,  it  is  near  at  hand. 
He  needs  a  friend,  a  personal  sympathizer  and 
auxiliary.  And  that  friend,  to  exert  an  upward 
pull,  must  stand  above  him  on  a  summit  of 
larger  achievement,  must  be  a  bigger  and  better 
man  than  he  is  himself.  True,  between  equals 
there  may  be  mutual  encouragements,  and  "  two 
heads  are  better  than  one,  though  one  be  a 
blockhead. "     Nevertheless,  the  friend  on  whom 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  57 

you  lean  in  your  weakness,  who  is  to  revive 
your  manhood  and  recrown  your   faith,   must   * 
come  to  you  charged  with  a  fuller  faith  and  a 
higher  message  than  your  own  heart  just  then 
is  voicing. 

The  inequalities  of  human  endowment,  and 
the  varieties  of  human  experience  render  it 
possible  for  men  to  be  assistant  to  one  another. 
The  moods  of  mankind,  like  the  crumpled  seas, 
are  never  on  a  dead  level  of  uniformity.  We 
are  never  all  at  once  in  the  Slough  of  Despond. 
Some  Helpfuls  always  remain  upon  the  banks 
to  extend  a  hand  of  rescue.  No  flood  sub- 
merges every  peak,  or  if  so  an  ark  floats  on 
its  tide  till  the  waters  abate.  When  Peter 
sinks  in  the  waves,  there  stands  Jesus  solid, 
ready,  mighty  to  save.  Always  there  is  some 
one  stronger  and  wiser  than  ourselves  to  whom 
we  can  make  appeal.  The  Book  of  Life  has  its 
precedent  or  its  example  to  interpret  almost 
any  case  you  can  bring  to  it,  to  inspire  your 
quailing  heart  in  any  crisis.  In  the  changes 
and  peculiarities  of  human  fortune  each  man 
becomes  in  his  turn  an  object-lesson  to  others, 
to  warn  or  to  cheer.  And  out  of  the  fund  of 
his  hard-earned  wisdom,  your  neighbor,  other- 


58  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

wise  your  equal  or  less  than  that,  may  become 
your  monitor,  your  benefactor,  your  saviour 
for  the  hour.  How  poorly  could  we  spare  our 
friends ! 

But  this  is  not  all  nor  most  to  the  purpose. 
As  mountains  rise  above  their  foot  hills,  these 
foot  hills  above  the  plain,  the  plain  itself  above 
the  valleys  and  gorges  that  intersect  it,  and  a 
phenomenal  Mont  Blanc  or  Everest  reaches  for 
the  clouds,  and  lords  it  over  all ;  so  humanity 
lies  at  varying  levels,  the  multitude  below,  the 
few  above,  dwindling  to  thin  ranks  and  oc- 
casional pilgrims,  as  the  heights  ascend  to 
where,  upon  far  altitudes,  clothed  with  mist 
but  glorious  in  the  rays  of  the  yet  invisible  sun. 
Genius  walks  alone,  herald  of  coming  dawns, 
and  general  almoner  of  the  Lord  Bountiful. 
God  provides  for  man's  saving  not  merely  gen- 
eric types  but  special  individuals,  not  merely 
trends  of  influence  but  living  exemplars  and 
leaders.  In  the  march  of  progress  the  few  are 
pioneers,  the  many  willing  followers,  and  one, 
it  may  be,  the  Pathfinder.  An  army  requires 
its  scouts  and  skirmishers,  but  the  great  body 
must  hang  together  in  their  divisions,  brigades, 
regiments,   companies.     The   scout   scents  the 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  59 

situation,  the  skirmisher  tests  it,  the  com- 
mander-in-chief takes  his  cue  from  the  experi- 
ment, and  passes  his  orders  down  through  proper 
official  stages  to  the  "common  soldier,"  who 
does  the  fighting.  Everywhere  a  similar 
arrangement  obtains.  You  can  count  the 
greatest  fighters,  fictionists,  poets,  painters, 
sculptors,  orators,  philosophers,  statesmen, 
each  upon  your  fingers.  These  represent  so 
many  forms  of  human  genius  at  present  high- 
water  mark.  These  everybody  extols,  every- 
body studies,  everybody  defers  to  as  authority. 
Their  sway  is  world-wide;  their  circle  the 
horizon.  Yet  they  enjoy  no  monopoly  of  abil- 
ity. Below  the  topmost  rank,  but  still  upon 
dizzy  elevations,  dominant  over  narrower  but 
yet  wide  circles,  rules  a  lesser  but  yet  splendid 
order  of  genius,  unbearably  brilliant  in  itself, 
and  only  shadowed  by  the  intenser  lights  above. 
And  so  on  down,  in  more  numerous  but  ever 
shrinking  circles,  the  fact  of  leadership  distrib- 
utes itself  through  all  ranks. 

The  true  leaders  are  not  self-constituted. 
They  are  providential  men  and  women,  for 
whose  appearance  no  general  evolutionary  law 
can  give   account,  and  who   certainly  are   not 


60  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

mere  chance  waves  that  happen  to  touch  a 
little  higher  point  than  their  fellows  that  pre- 
cede and  that  chase  them.  They  are  appointed 
pace-makers  for  the  race,  select  exemplars  of 
vast  and  thrilling  possibilities.  Inspired  them- 
selves at  last,  it  seems,  by  the  Eternal  Spirit 
himself,  they  fling  down  inspiration  upon  all 
strivers.  They  blaze  the  new  paths,  they  ven- 
ture upon  forbidden  heights,  they  outface  the 
sphinx  with  her  mocking  mystery,  they  snatch 
up  the  gauntlet  of  the  "impracticable,"  and 
presently  show  it  subdued  to  triumphant  reality. 
And  when  they  wave  their  pennons  aloft  and 
cry,  "Follow,"  the  race  answers  back  with  eager 
shout,  and  presses  after  them.  No  sacrifice  of 
independence  is  felt  in  that  discipleship,  but  a 
greater  freedom  in  the  assured  hope  of  victory. 
To  love  for  the  object  of  endeavor  itself,  are 
added  love  and  loyalty  to  the  chosen  leader, 
and,  in  the  faith  that  man  can  do  what  man 
has  done,  the  columns  advance  with  a  solidity 
impossible  were  each  man  to  insist  upon  his 
own  gait  and  direction. 

Leadership,  personal  prophets  and  exemplars 
at  the  front  of  the  great  host  and  each  of  its 
divisions, —  that  is  the  ordained  plan  of  human 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD-  61 

progress.  It  is  so  at  home,  where  parental 
care  points  out  the  path  and  sustains  the  tod- 
dling steps  of  the  young  wayfarer.  It  is  so  at 
school,  where  the  wisdom  of  sage  and  scientist 
and  scholar  is  offered  the  pupil  in  digested  and 
authoritative  forms  from  kindergarten  to  uni- 
versity. It  is  so  at  play,  where  the  stronger  or 
more  aggressive  spirit  rules  the  game  by  volun- 
tary concession  of  the  more  diffident.  It  is  so 
in  business,  where  proved  sagacity  is  given 
almost  free  rein,  and  the  supposed  lessons  of 
the  past,  crystallized  into  a  regnant  though 
unwritten  code,  constitute  the  norm  of  all  legit- 
imate transactions,  save  when  some  adventurous 
spirit  breaks  from  the  tradition,  and,  if  he  suc- 
ceeds, sets  the  stakes  of  new  traditions.  It  is 
so  in  politics,  where  the  multitude  are  only  too 
willing  to  maintain  the  beaten  paths,  and  where 
indeed  rampant  individualism  must  come  at 
last  to  chaos  and  anarchy.  It  is  so  in  litera- 
ture, whose  canons  and  models  simply  report 
the  practice  of  those  who  impress  themselves 
upon  the  many  as  the  ablest  and  best.  Look 
where  we  will,  we  shall  find  no  realm  in  which 
the  plan  does  not  assert  itself. 

We  need  not  therefore  be  surprised  or  scan- 


b2  THE   SAVIOUR  OF   THE  WORLD. 

dalized  to  see  the  same  providential  method 
operative  in  religion.  Religion  is  correct 
thinking,  and  the  best  thinkers  are  bound  to 
instruct  and  lead  the  poorer.  Religion  is  puri- 
fied conscience,  and  the  living  illustrator  of  it 
becomes  perforce  the  rebuke  and  inspiration 
of  the  disobedient.  Religion  is  exalted  emo- 
tion, —  a  flame  that  not  only  fascinates  the 
gaze  but  fires  the  emulation  of  all  who  believe 
in  its  realityo  Religion  is  fellowship  with  the 
Father,  and  he  who  enjoys  it  in  any  marked 
degree  encourages  all  others  to  seek  it,  perhaps 
along  the  very  ways  which  admitted  him. 

And  as  we  should  expect  from  the  universal 
analogy,  religion  has  its  great  Leaders  and 
Exemplars.  Each  age,  each  land  has  produced 
those  "of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy," 
who  have  "fought  a  good  fight,"  and  "kept  the 
faith  "  according  to  their  light,  and  who  there- 
fore were  looked  up  to  and  followed  while  liv- 
ing, and  being  dead  yet  speak.  There  have 
been  also  a  few,  a  very  few,  whose  lustre  was 
so  bright  and  penetrating  that  it  illumined 
whole  lands,  and  though  centuries  have  elapsed 
continues  to  shine  to  the  comfort  and  strength 
of  multitudes.     It  is,  perhaps,  an  amazing  fact 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE    WORLD.  63 

that  the  nearest  to  us  in  point  of  time  of  these 
confessedly  great  Founders  of  Religions  finished 
his  earthly  career  more  than  twelve  centuries 
since,  and  the  date  of  the  best  of  the  others, 
save  one,  goes  back  thousands  of  years'.  Modern 
enlightenment  and  culture,  with  all  their  rich 
benefits,  have  not  produced  a  name  worthy  to 
be  named  by  the  side  of  the  Indian  or  the 
Chinese  sage,  much  less  beside  that  of  the  man 
of  Nazareth.  The  heights  to  which  these 
masters  attained  have  appeared  to  others  unat- 
tainable. They  have  been  teachers  of  teachers, 
and  saviours  of  saviours.  Their  wise  words 
have  edified  millions,  and  their  gentle  spirits 
have  sweetened  and  softened  the  temper  of  the 
world. 

Does  it  seem  now  that  these  results  could 
have  been  effected  in  any  other  way  ?  Can 
truth  ever  gain  by  itself  the  authority  with 
which  a  truth-formed  life  invests  it  ?  Can 
preaching  ever  have  the  force  of  practice  ?  Can 
mere  descriptions  of  the  beauty  of  goodness 
move  men  like  the  actual  goodness  of  a  good 
man  ?  We  can,  of  course,  think  of  every  truth 
as  firmly  grasped  and  clearly  stated  in  a  writing 
which    shall  be  infallible  as  to  accuracy,  but 


64  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

dissociated  from  any  living  exemplar.  We  can 
suppose  men  to  attain  to  the  conception  of  the 
most  perfect  ideals,  without  the  presentation 
before  them  of  any  life  embodying  those  ideals. 
But  in  these  impersonal  forms  is  it  likely  that 
the  truth  would  be  so  appreciated,  or  the  ideals 
become  springs  of  motive,  as  when  an  actual 
character  bears  witness  to  the  truth  and  illum- 
ines the  ideal  ?  We  may  insist  that  truth 
ought  to  be  its  own  authority,  but  we  cannot 
blink  the  fact  that  most  men  settle  first  the 
authority,  and  afterwards  sit  at  his  feet  to  learn 
the  truth.  And  if  this  does  not  prove  this 
method  of  salvation  to  be  inevitable  and  neces- 
sary, it  proves  it  to  be  actual,  which  is  of  far 
more  consequence. 

We  thus  come  near  to  the  verification  of  our 
thesis.  Jesus  offered  himself  as  a  personal 
Saviour,  in  the  faith  that  the  world  required 
something  more  than .  philosophy  or  science, 
more  than  culture  or  evolution  for  its  full  sal- 
vation. And  we  have  now  seen  that  the  actual 
chief  saving  influences  brought  to  bear  upon 
human  life  have  operated  through  the  genius 
for  religion  of  a  few  pre-eminent  persons,  and 
through  the  power  of  winning  personal  disciple- 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  65 

ship,  which  enlisted  in  their  service,  as  expo- 
nents of  their  doctrine  and  products  of  their 
ministry,  millions  upon  millions  of  believers. 
It  is  not  the  pulpit  that  sways  the  future,  but 
the  personal  consecration  of  the  lives  that  an- 
swer to  its  appeal ;  and  the  power  of  the  pulpit 
itself  is  not  its  philosophy  nor  its  eloquence, 
but  the  manhood  which  utters  itself  through 
these.  Jesus  was  surely  right  in  offering  a  per- 
sonality, not  a  theory,  as  Saviour  of  the  world. 

X.  —  One  Perfect  Saviour  nei^ed,  and  only 
One. 

What  we  have  been  saying  goes  to  show  that 
many  persons  have  been  saviours  in  a  degree, 
—  that,  in  fact,  all  men  are  saviours,  after 
some  fashion,  in  their  turn;  but  a  few  have 
been  saviours  in  a  pre-eminent  degree.  Jesus, 
however,  claims  an  exclusive  prerogative,  not 
denying  or  depreciating  the  good  influence  of 
others,  but  stamping  it  as  distinctly  inferior  to 
his  own.  Now,  is  it  rational  to  suppose  that 
all  humanity  must  be  debtor  to  any  one  person 
less  than  God  ?  Should  we  not  rather  expect 
different  saviours-in-chief,  each  illustrating  in 
5 


66  THE   SAVIOUR  OF   THE    WORLD. 

superlative  degree  some  function  of  the  mani- 
fold office,  —  a  peerage  rather  than  a  kingship 
of  saviourhood  ?  As  it  may  never  be  decided 
whether  Homer  or  Shakespeare  was  the  supreme 
poet,  whether  Hannibal  or  Napoleon  was  the 
abler  soldier,  why  not  leave  the  primacy  of 
Jesus  also  an  open  question  ? 

In  answer  it  might  suffice  to  remind  our- 
selves that  it  is  Jesus  who  makes  the  claim, 
and  to  reflect  what  verdict  history  has  passed 
upon  his  credentials.  But  we  have  no  wish  to 
silence  debate  by  thus  "moving  the  previous 
question,"  nor  to  evade  the  most  prying  scrutiny 
of  the  intrinsic  merits  of  the  pretension.  We 
urge  instead  certain  considerations  which  indi- 
cate that  one  Saviour  is  enough.  Of  course  we 
mean  one  such  Saviour  as  Jesus  professed  to  be. 

For  there  is  nothing  perilous  in  the  admission 
that  "there  are  lords  man}^,"  provided  we  recol- 
lect in  time  that  in  the  highest  sense  there  is 
only  "one  Lord,  Jesus  Christ."  Jesus  is  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  because  he  helps  men  in 
ways  and  in  a  measure  which  no  one  else  can 
parallel.  But  what  is  peculiar  in  the  method 
of  his  ministry  is  done  once  for  all,  and  needs 
not  to  be  duplicated. 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  67 

We  must  wait  until  we  have  studied  the  pro- 
gramme of  Jesus  before  we  can  fully  appreciate 
the  essential  singleness  of  his  office.  But, 
partly  anticipating  that  inquiry,  we  may  here 
see:  — 

1.  That  one  perfect  revelation  of  truth  is  all- 
sufficient,  if  it  really  puts  the  truth  before  the 
world  with  adequate  vouchers ;  and  otherwise  it 
would  not  be  a  perfect  revelation.  Indeed,  it 
is  transparent  that  there  could  not  be  a  second 
revelation  of  the  same  truth  in  the  same  way. 
Especially  must  this  be  true  if  the  revelation 
involve  supernatural  elements  or  supernatural 
methods.  For,  while  man-discovered  truth  may 
require  to  be  corroborated  over  and  over  by 
parallel  discoveries  by  other  equally  competent 
but  independent  investigators,  it  would  ill  befit 
the  dignity  of  God  to  reiterate  a  disclosure  once 
plainly  made,  for  the  sake  of  winning  credit 
for  his  words.  The  attempt,  indeed,  to  raise 
up  other  Christs,  to  illustrate  in  their  person- 
alities under  differing  conditions  the  same 
truths  and  ideals  which  Jesus  illustrated,  must 
result  in  confusion,  divided  allegiance,  and 
factional  rivalries.  Besides,  there  would  be 
no   natural    limit  to  such   a   process.     If   two 


68      THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Christs  arc  wanted,  ^vhy  not  twenty  or  twenty 
thousand,  —  why  not  one  for  every  nation, 
every  age,  every  class,  every  individual  ?  Still 
further,  economy  of  supernatural  visitation  is 
necessary  to  its  prestige,  and  also  to  the  stabil- 
ity of  Nature.  There  might  be  supreme  reason 
for  intervening  once  to  add  elements  of  salva- 
tion not  adequately  provided  for  in  natural 
processes,  but  there  could  be  nothing  but  self- 
stultification  in  making  that  interference  a 
habit. 

Now,  Jesus'  claim  was  that  he  represented  a 
special  dispensation  of  divine  dealing  with 
men ;  that  he  came  in  the  nick  of  time  to  do 
what  needed  to  be  done  at  that  juncture,  and 
needed  to  be  done  in  the  way  he  did  it;  but 
that  the  sequel  of  that  particular  ministry  would 
so  wrap  the  world  in  blessing,  that  no  second 
or  successor  would  be  required.  The  truth 
once  definitely  and  demonstratively  set  forth, 
and  vitalized  by  his  embodiment  of  its  practical 
corollaries  in  life,  would  gradually  commend 
itself  to  the  thought  and  conscience  of  men, 
and  at  last  reach  and  redeem  the  whole  world. 
Clearly  one  such  revelation  was  enough  because 
it  was  all-inclusive. 


THE   SAVIOUR   OF   THE  WORLD.  69 

2.  Similarly,  one  perfect  exemplar^  one  true 
specimen  of  a  type  answers  all  the  questions 
which  a  thousand  such  specimens  could  answer. 
It  reveals  the  type  itself,  settling  all  disputes 
on  that  score ;  and  it  makes  a  decisive  appeal 
for  imitation  or  discipleship.  Jesus'  life  was 
a  model,  available  to  all  alike  for  study,  copy- 
ing, or  admiration.  Could  a  collection  of  fac- 
simile models  serve  the  purpose  any  better  ? 
Would  not  the  multiplicity  distract  attention, 
and  tend  to  cheapen  the  conception  itself  ? 

The  example  of  Jesus  was  not,  I  think, 
offered  primarily  for  inspiration,  but  for  illus- 
tration. As  a  mere  spectacle  of  heroism  and 
high-mindedness  it  might  be  duplicated  without 
damage.  Still,  because  of  the  sovereignty  of 
his  endowment,  which  seemed  to  render  his 
triumphs  a  foregone  conclusion,  the  example  of 
a  man  more  like  ourselves,  winning  victories, 
which  we  feel  we  also  might  win,  has  perhaps 
more  potency  in  saying,  Go  thou  and  do  like- 
wise. But  as  an  illustration  of  the  power  of 
spirit,  of  the  nearness  to  his  children  which  the 
Father  desires  to  realize,  of  the  joy  of  self-sur- 
render to  truth,  the  example  of  Jesus  was  per- 
manently peerless.     And  if  we  believe  in  the 


70  THE   SAVIOUR  OF   THE   WORLD. 

reality  of  this  illustration  no  other  is  needed. 
A  repetition  of  the  proof  could  only  echo  this ; 
while  standing  alone  this  tells  with  equal  and 
unabated  power  upon  all  the  ages. 

3.  One  other  function  Jesus  claimed,  that  of 
mediator  between  the  Father  and  his  alienated 
children;  and  this  not  merely  as  interpreter  or 
peace-maker,  but  as  the  hand  which  distributes 
the  divine  bounty,  the  communicator  of  life  to 
the  world.  There  is  mystery  in  this  claim ;  we 
may  not  be  able  fully  to  resolve  it.  It  essen- 
tially differentiates  the  pretensions  of  Jesus 
from  those  of  any  other  great  teacher.  It  suffi- 
ces to  observe  here  that  such  an  office  empha- 
sizes the  solitariness  of  his  position,  and 
harmonizes  well  with  his  claim  to  sole  compe- 
tency as  a  complete  Saviour.  Where  supplies 
are  all  drawn  from  one  reservoir,  a  single 
great  main  may  carry  the  full  flow  to  where  it 
is  tapped  for  separate  needs.  Or,  to  change 
the  simile,  one  commissary-in-chief  at  the  head 
of  the  bureau  of  distribution  is  better  than 
divided  responsibility.  If  the  current  of  the 
divine  life  passes  through  Jesus,  as  adminis- 
trator, to  humanity,  that  is  surely  a  function  we 
should  not  expect  to  see  shared  with  a  second. 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  71 

There  is  nothing  illogical,  nothing  visionary, 
nothing  even  anomalous  in  a  solar  system 
which  has  its  octette  of  greater  and  lesser 
planets,  its  hundreds  of  asteroids,  with  one  sun 
at  the  centre.  If  we  reject  the  claims  of  Jesus 
on  supposed  grounds  of  liberty,  equality,  divine 
impartiality,  we  must  by  the  same  reasoning 
depose  Buddha,  Confucius,  Mohammed,  Socra- 
tes and  Seneca,  Plato  and  Aurelius,  Luther, 
Calvin,  John  Knox,  John  Wesley,  and  John 
Murray.  If  we  may  admit  the  lesser  leader- 
ships we  may  admit  the  greater,  the  Greatest  of 
all.  For  with  every  due  honor  to  these  worthies 
they  were  not  sufficient  and  infallible  men. 
The  leader  needed  to  be  led ;  the  masters  must 
own  a  Master;  the  saviours  must  themselves  be 
saved!  All  but  one,  and  even  he  too  in  the 
sense  of  a  normal  evolution.  God  alone  is  the 
Saviour  of  all.  But  Jesus  as  his  Agent  saves 
the  world ! 

The  very  incomparable  greatness  of  Jesus, 
the  uniqueness  of  his  personality,  is  argument 
for  the  uniqueness  of  office  which  he  claimed. 
In  the  lower  courses  there  must  be  many  stones, 
but  one  capstone  is  ample  and  best.  The  glory 
of  humanity  tapers  as  it  rises  towards  God,  and 


72  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Jesus  represents  its  topmost  pinnacle.  Rest- 
ing there  in  a  manner  upon  all  the  others  he 
climaxes  and  completes  them,  while  the  electric 
touch  which  he  catches  from  the  heavens  passes 
downward  in  generous  distribution  to  the  low- 
liest of  all. 

Here  then  is  our  justification  of  the  claim  of 
Jesus  on  its  own  merits :  — 

1.  Salvation,  meaning  progre^  or  perfec- 
tion, is  the  universal  desideratum. 

2.  In  achieving  it,  the  individual  must  look 
outside  himself  for  such  helps  as  Nature,  as 
humanity,   as  God  may  afford. 

3.  The  best  of  these  helps  is  the  personal 
influence  of  good  men,  who  have  mastered  the 
problems  and  beaten  the  enemies  which  vex  us, 
and  are  thus  qualified  to  inspire,  to  edify,  and 
directly  to  assist  us. 

4.  Of  many  such  saviours,  some  are  better 
than  others,  and  it  is  not  irrational  to  conceive 
of  one  as  the  best  of  all.  And  if  we  can  admit 
the  revelation  of  truth  and  its  exemplification 
in  life  to  have  been  perfectly  discovered  in 
Jesus,  then  clearly  there  needs  no  second  per- 
formance of  this  service,  which  is  in  its  very 
nature  universal  in  scope  and  perpetual  in 
authority. 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD,  73 

To  man  needing  to  be  saved;  to  man  who 
cannot  save  himself;  to  man  already  helped  by 
many  great  leaders,  comes,  in  the  fulness  of 
time,  one  universal  Helper,  true  Son  of  God, 
true  Son  of  Man,  Saviour  of  saviours,  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.      He  is  the  Saviour  of  the  World. 

XL  —  How  IS  Christ  a  Saviour  ? 

We  have  attempted  to  present  a  rational  view 
of  the  need  of  such  a  divine  visitant  as  Jesus 
professed  to  be.  It  is  in  human  nature  itself, 
and  the  conditions  of  its  best  evolution,  that  we 
find  occasion  for  his  advent.  We  wish  now  to 
give  equally  rational  treatment  to  the  question, 
How  shall  such  a  predestined  Saviour  proceed 
to  save  ?  The  answer,  as  before,  must  harmon- 
ize with  the  attributes  of  our  humanity  and  with 
the  established  moralities  of  the  universe. 

From  the  point  of  view  we  occupy,  it  is  safe 
to  assume  that  the  method  of  salvation  must 
be  ethical,  not  magical ;  that  it  will  not  sup- 
plant the  laws  of  growth  by  an  arbitrary  and 
miraculous  bestowment  of  sheer  gifts;  that  it 
will  respect  the  autonomy  of  the  individual 
soul,  and  seek  to  elicit  its  aptitudes  by  persua- 


74  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

sion  and  education,  never  by  coercion.  Each 
man  will  be  his  own  judge  and  jury ;  but  he  is 
not  his  own  legislator;  and  it  is  the  business 
of  a  Saviour,  as  au  expert  advocate,  to  win  the 
court's  decision  by  the  inherent  justice  of  his 
cause.  Against  his  appeals,  however,  he  must 
expect  the  force  of  habit,  the  power  of  "the 
world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil,"  "the  lust  of 
the  flesh,  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  pride  of 
life,"  to  pull  strenuously  and  long.  He  will 
require  not  only  truth  but  tact,  not  only  tact 
but  patience,  and  such  a  sense  of  the  glory  and 
exigency  of  his  enterprise  as  cannot  brook 
defeat  on  any  terms.  No  holiday  affair,  this 
saving  of  the  whole  world.  He  that  under- 
takes it  should  look  w^ell  to  his  qualifications, 
and  well  to  his  programme,  make  no  mistakes 
and  commit  himself  to  it  finally  and  forever. 

But  if  he  be  adequately  wise  and  strong,  he 
can  afford  to  be  patient.  There  is  time  enough, 
even  all  eternity,  to  work  in.  No  vicissitude 
can  abate  the  operation  of  moral  laws ;  no  pro- 
bationary period,  no  death  line,  limit  his 
opportunity  of  appeal ;  no  catastrophe  destroy 
the  essential  beneficence  of  his  endeavor. 
Religion  is  native  to  man;  it  is  reasonable,  it 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  75 

is  infinitely  attractive.  "Holiness  and  true 
happiness  are  inseparably  connected. "  Heaven 
aims  to  bless  man,  not  to  tyrannize  over  him. 
It  knows  him  better  than  he  knows  himself, 
and  the  destiny  it  appoints,  and  to  which  it 
ever  urges  him  forward,  is  precisely  the  one  he 
is  groping  obstinately  in  the  dark  to  secure. 
Human  nature,  too,  is  capable,  however  per- 
verted, of  all  that  God  demands.  Who  knows 
this  so  well  as  that  Saviour  who  has  himself 
wrestled  with  and  vanquished  our  temptations, 
tasted  the  dregs  of  this  world  and  the  felicities 
of  "  the  world  to  come "  ?  Jesus  addresses 
himself  to  his  task  in  sanguine  mood.  No 
dreamer  either,  but  one  who  has  caught  sight 
of  the  "  mountain  full  of  horses  and  chariots  of 
fire "  (2  Kings  vi.  17),  who  knows  there  are 
"more  than  twelve  legions  of  angels"  at  his 
call.  With  God  behind  him  and  at  his  side, 
with  eternal  realities  under  his  feet,  and 
imperious  love  in  his  heart,  he  will  never  con- 
sent to  be  driven  from  his  plea,  nor  ever  let 
that  man  go  —  whoever  he  is —  without  his 
blessing. 

How  shall  he  go  about  it  to  "convince  the 
world  of  sin,    of  righteousness,   and  of   judg- 


76  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

ment "  ?  What  resources  has  he  ?  How  get  the 
ear  of  mankind  ?  How  enchain  their  atten- 
tion ?  How  certify  his  claims  before  them  ? 
How  win  their  confidence  ?  How  persuade 
their  minds  ?  How  arrest  their  headlong  plunge 
into  depravity  ?  How  brace  their  nerveless 
wills  ?  How  thrill  their  jaded  aspirations  ? 
How  cleanse  their  foul  desires  ?  How  outshine 
the  glamour  of  sense  ?  How  arouse  the  slum- 
bering spirit  of  sonship  ?  How  exorcise  the 
demon  of  selfishness  ?  All  this  and  more  he 
must  do,  not  by  wholesale  but  with  delicate 
adaptation  to  each  detail,  and  to  all  possible 
varieties.  It  is  a  problem  which  has  seemed 
insuperable  to  many  great  and  good  men.  The 
best  and  bravest  have  only  dared  to  trust  that 
God  himself  would  be  equal  to  it.  What  was 
Jesus  that  he  found  courage  to  say,  "I  will 
draw  all  men  unto  me  ?  " 

The  temple  of  personal  liberty  must  not  be 
violated.  But  God  has  provided  for  the  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  by  making  human  nature 
rational  and  religious.  No  extent  of  depravity 
can  ever  obliterate  these  attributes.  The  logic 
of  salvation  is  this:  Man  is  mind,  therefore  he 
can  be  made  to  know ;  knowledge  lets  him  into 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF    THE  WORLD.  77 

the  secret  of  happiness,  which  is  a  godly  life, 
and  happiness  possesses  for  him  an  indomitable 
fascination;  ideals  and  the  exploits  of  heroes 
fire  him  with  a  spirit  of  emulation,  and  the 
effort  to  rise  increases  strength  and  buoyancy. 
Finally,  the  fellowship  of  electric  natures 
charges  his  own,  replenishes  his  wasted  powers, 
and  fastens  his  magnetized  soul  to  the  infinite 
battery  of  creative  supply. 

These  three  things  a  true  saviour  must  be 
able  to  achieve : — 

1.  To  inform  men  as  to  their  real  status,  to 
enlighten  the  world,  to  declare  the  truths  —  all 
the  truth  that  is  needful  for  moral  guidance 
and  spiritual  uplift. 

2.  To  supply  motive,  to  generate  a  passion  for 
righteousness,  to  make. men  ivant  to  do  what 
they  have  been  taught  they  ought  to  do. 

3.  To  increase  strength,  to  restore  the  spent 
vitality,  to  recrown  the  will  power,  and  eyiahle  a 
man  to  do  what  he  wants  to  do  and  ought  to  do. 

Nothing  short  of  this  threefold  cord  will  draw 
the  whole  world  to  God.  Most  schemes  of  re- 
demption are  defective  in  one  or  the  other  of 
these  influences.  Quite  generally  it  is  imagined 
to  be  sufficient  if  we  preach  correct  doctrine.    But 


78  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

not  so.  Practice  always  limps  far  in  the  rear 
of  professed  principles.  How  to  inspire  men, 
—  that  is  a  problem  by  itself.  The  economy  of 
effectual  salvation  must  master  the  theory  of 
distribution  as  well  as  of  production;  must  tell 
how  to  create  a  market  where  none  exists, 
that  the  truth  may  not  only  come  to  its  own, 
but  also  be  received  and  appropriated  by  them. 
Jesus  rejected,  —  that  is  a  common  spectacle ; 
but  Jesus  conquering  his  critics  and  scorners, 
Jesus  persisting,  besieging,  winning  at  last  the 
welcome  that  was  at  first  denied,  —  that  is  the 
spectacle  we  wait  to  see.  It  is  not  sufficient  to 
be  right.  The  actual  Saviour  must  make  men 
see  that  he  is  right,  and  arouse  them  to  enthu- 
siastic alliance  with  him.  And  even  this  is 
not  all ;  for  often  the  flesh  is  weak  though 
the  spirit  is  willing.  Who  will  energize  the 
decrepit  souls  ?  None  other  can  completely 
save. 

Let  us  see  how  Jesus  operated  on  all  of  these 
lines  at  once. 

1.  Salvation  hy  the  Truth.  —  "Ye  shall  know 
the  truth,"  said  Jesus,  "and  the  truth  shall 
make  you  free  "  (John  viii.  32).  Free  from 
what  ?     Knowledge,  of  course,  saves  from  ignor- 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  79 

ance,  and  truth  from  error.  Did  Jesus  then 
come  as  a  schoolmaster  to  teach  truth  for  its 
own  sake  ?  No,  his  eye  was  on  the  deeper  fact, 
that  from  ignorance  and  error  comes  sin.  As 
sunlight  is  death  to  certain  noxious  weeds, 
which  thrive  in  damp  and  darkness,  so  the  rays 
of  truth  stab  the  dreams  and  delusions  of  un- 
schooled natures.  We  must  say  then  that  he 
purposed  a  campaign  of  enlightenment.  He 
would  tear  the  mask  from  hypocrisy.  He 
would  fling  wide  the  doors,  let  the  J»ats  and 
vampires  scream  and  flutter  as  they  might. 
He  feared  not  the  day.  He  trusted  facts.  He 
was  the  prophet  of  intelligence  and  the  patron 
of  research.  To  him  the  scientific  temper 
owes  a  debt  it  is  too  apt  to  ignore.  One  less 
friendly  to  the  invocation  of  mere  tradition  or 
official  authority  than  Jesus  of  Nazareth  the 
world  has  never  seen. 

Yet  what  he  chiefly  sought  was  not  science 
but  salvation,  salvation  through  science  in  part, 
but  as  itself  the  main  thing,  not  an  after- 
thought. He  lamented  the  wickedness  of  men, 
but  fixed  no  brand  upon  their  want  of  culture. 
He  dealt  little  in  learning,  and  was  not  himself 
a  scholar  nor  scholarly.     He  laid  no  ban  upon 


80  THE  SAVIOUR   OF  THE   WORLD. 

the  pursuit  of  knowledge  in  general,  but  Lis 
own  interest  was  mainly  absorbed  in  a  certain 
sort  of  knowledge,  in  the  heavenly  wisdom  by 
which  the  human  child  knows  the  divine 
Father.  And  while  no  syllable  of  his  ever 
depreciated  the  intellectual  powers,  he  most 
prized  the  intuitions  of  the  pure  and  peaceful 
heart. 

It  was  not,  therefore,  all  kinds  of  truth  which 
Jesus  came  to  teach.  He  gave  no  reason  to 
suppose,- — except  the  reason  of  love  and  con- 
fidence in  his  amazing  genius,  —  that  he  was 
competent  to  teach  many  kinds  of  truth.  He 
was  a  sympathetic  observer  of  natural  phenom- 
ena, but  took  note  rather  of  their  moral  and 
spiritual  suggestions  than  of  their  structure  or 
habits,  as  a  naturalist  would.  This,  how^ever, 
we  must  believe,  was  due  not  to  scanty  endow- 
ments, but  to  deliberate  choice.  He  was  con- 
tent to  know  less  about  some  things,  that  he 
might  know  all  about  the  highest  things.  If 
he  lacked  in  the  lore  of  the  student,  he  com- 
pensated himself  with  intimacies  which  no  mere 
student  ever  acquires.  He  was  a  pioneer  in 
unexplored  regions,  and  what  he  discovered 
there  was  of  the  utmost  preciousness  in  itself, 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  81 

and  of  the  highest  utility  to  mankind.  Upon 
that  knowledge,  gained,  as  he  said,  by  direct 
eye-witness  and  audience  with  God,  he  relied 
for  the  opening  of  sin-blinded  eyes,  and  the 
unveiling  of  the  heavens  to  men  who  saw 
nothing  in  the  universe  but  dirt. 

Was  this  self-limitation  a  defect  in  the 
lordship  of  Jesus  ?  Would  he  have  gained  in 
authority  by  living  in  an  age  like  ours,  and 
going  in  absorbedly  for  culture  and  science  as 
the  foremost  factors  in  the  world's  redemption  ? 
Is  it  a  disadvantage  to  the  advocacy  of  his 
cause,  that  we  cannot  show  him  at  least  the 
peer  of  the  erudite  and  elegant  circles  of  our 
time  ?  Would  he  grow  in  estimation  if  we  were 
able  to  quote  learned  dicta  from  his  lips,  sol- 
vents of  the  special  problems  which  confront  us 
in  every  realm  ?  It  would  seem  that  those  who 
propose  to  supersede  his  spiritual  methods  by  a 
^campaign  of  culture,  converting  the  church  into 
a  school-house  and  the  pulpit  into  a  lecture- 
ship, must  have  decided  against  the  permanent 
utility  of  the  simple  programme  of  Jesus.  It 
may  be  wondered  whether  such  do  not  experi- 
ence a  sense  of  humiliation  over  the  meagre 
equipment  of  Jesus  to  cope  with  the  "living 
6 


82  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

questions  "  of  our  illustrious  period.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  we  have  to  confess  that  there  is  no  evi- 
dence that  Jesus  ever  turned  his  attention  to 
polite  studies,  that  he  ever  read  a  line  of  the 
classics,  or  affected  music  or  art,  or  frequented 
the  salon  to  canvass  the  movements  of  the  hour. 
And  yet  he  has  been  a  good  deal  of  a  Saviour 
to  many ! 

It  by  no  means  follows  that  the  pursuit  of 
literature  or  science  or  art  is  vicious  or  un- 
worthy because  Jesus  neglected  such  matters. 
But  it  does  follow  that  he  did  not  trust  to  these 
for  the  world's  salvation.  He  may  well  have 
foreseen  that  the  impulse  of  nobleness,  aspira- 
tion, sonship  would  demand  many  such  fine 
and  rich  expressions  of  mind  and  imagination. 
But  he  knew  that  selfishness,  the  master-devil 
that  betrays  us,  is  not  expelled  by  the  mere 
transfer  of  interest  from  the  material  to  the 
mental  sphere.  He  sought  to  control,  to  trans- 
figure the  very  purpose  of  life.  Therefore  in 
his  thought  the  principal  thing  was  to  "seek 
first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteous- 
ness." This  kingdom  he  set  himself  to  in- 
troduce, in  its  nearness  and  glory,  to  the 
apprehension  and  aspiration  of  men. 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  83 

His  teaching,  in  harmony  with  this  main 
object,  was  simplicity  itself:  "God,  the  Eter- 
nal One,  the  Holy  One,  is  your  '  Father. '  He 
loves  you;  do  you  also  love  him,  with  every 
power  of  your  being.  This  is  the  supreme 
thing.  There  is  another  thing  like  it.  As  all 
men  are  God's  children,  so  are  they  brethren  of 
one  another.  Love  your  brother,  love  him  as 
your  own  life.  And  respect  yourself.  Be  a 
good,  true  son  of  your  Father  in  heaven.  Trust 
him  absolutely;  he  will  not  fail  you.  Obey 
him  implicitly  at  any  cost ;  he  will  take  care  of 
the  consequences.  He  knows  what  is  well  for 
you ;  he  is  eager  to  make  you  great  and  happy. 
Do  not  think  to  deceive  him ;  do  not  think  to 
avoid  him.  He  loves  you  too  much  to  permit 
you  to  escape  him.  He  will  not  force  you ;  he 
seeks  a  spontaneous  fellowship;  he  will  let  you 
suffer  the  full  effects  of  your  own  errors  and 
sins  if  you  insist;  but  he  will  be  ready  for  you, 
whenever  you  will  come  home,  and  will  give 
you  heavenly  joy  in  his  presence.  All  that  life 
can  yield  of  peace  and  power  and  glory  shall  be 
yours,  if  you  will  only  make  him  your  choice. 
Then  you  will  grow  into  all  great  things.  I 
have  tried  it,  and  it  is   so.     And   I  have  his 


84  THE   SAVIOUR   OF  THE   WORLD. 

message  to  you,  inviting  you  to  give  him 
yoflr  hearts  and  to  accept  his  infinite  blessing. 
Come,  my  brother,  my  beloved,  come  with  me 
to  our  Father. " 

Such  in  its  essence  and  inmost  principle  was 
the  simple,  tender  Gospel  of  Jesus.  Does  it 
seem  a  modest,  almost  a  meagre  thing  beside 
the  elaborate  rules  of  Confucius  or  the  complex 
analysis  and  prescription  of  Buddha  ?  Does  it 
appear  to  cut  no  figure  in  comparison  with  the 
large  language  and  bristling  information  of 
some  of  the  German  or  English  philosophers  ? 
Nevertheless  it  has  certain  features  calculated 
to  draw  attention,  and  the  more  we  dwell  upon 
them  the  more  the  picture  rises  in  power. 

First,  it  is  concrete  ;  it  deals  with  questions 
of  life  rather  than  of  thought. 

Secondly,  it  does  answer  these  questions, 
intelligibly  but  not  superficially. 

Thirdly,  it  tells  us  just  what  above  all  things 
we  want  to  know  about  ourselves,  our  nature, 
our  duty,  our  destiny;  and  it  is  something 
sufficient,   stimulating,   transcendent. 

Fourthly,  it  interprets  to  us  the  play  of  force 
in  Nature,  the  sweep  of  events  which  bears  us 
along,    the   meaning   of    the   mysteries   which 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF   THE   WORLD.  85 

encompass  us,  and  all  in  two  words  "Our 
Father, "  —  not  "  Jehovah,  Jove,  or  Lord, "  not 
the  "Stream  of  Tendency,"  not  the  "Abso- 
lute," nor  even  the  Omnipotent,  or  the  Om- 
niscient, or  the  Omnipresent,  —  but  just  "  Our 
Father." 

Fifthly,  it  thus  furnishes  the  key  to  the  solu- 
tion of  all  problems  for  whose  solution  conduct 
is  waiting,  in  two  words,  "Sonship,"  "Brother- 
hood." 

Sixthly,  it  reveals  Jesus  as  permanently  con- 
secrated to  the  service  of  humanity,  and  through 
him  it  promises  that  rest  and  strength  towards 
which  all  other  religions  have  aspired  in 
vain. 

We  do  not  need  to  inquire  how  such  a  system 
of  truth  may  be  tributary  to  man's  reclamation. 
Its  bearing  is  obvious,  its  leverage  incalculable. 
It  is  possible  to  urge  many  claims  in  behalf  of 
other  schemes.  It  is  impossible  to  hold  these 
doctrines  of  Jesus  for  realities  and  not  be  trans- 
formed by  them  into  nobler  manhood.  They 
produced  that  result  first  of  all  in  himself. 
Then  they  metamorphosed  a  little  circle  of 
Galilean  peasants  into  orators,  organizers,  his- 
torians,   apostles    of    the   mightiest    religious 


86  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD. 

movement  in  history.  More  prolific  than  the 
tabled  dragon's  teeth,  there  sprang  up  wherever 
their  seed  was  sown,  not  armed  warriors,  but 
heroes,  martyrs,  confessors,  saints,  of  whom 
the  world  was  not  worthy,  whose  blood  and 
tears  freely  spilled  in  testimony  to  the  salva- 
tion wrought  in  them,  have  fertilized  the  soil 
of  humanity.  And  in  quieter  and  more  com- 
fortable times,  these  truths  have  still  a  power 
to  pierce  the  shell  of  selfishness  and  perpetuate 
the  splendid  line  of  those  whose  light,  shining 
in  darkness,  reveals  the  good  works  which  give 
glory  to  the  Father. 

Jesus  made  no  mistake.  The  truth  he  told 
was  precisely  adapted  to  his  object.  It  has 
gone  home  to  the  heart  of  the  world ;  its  leaven 
works  there  unseen  but  irresistibly.  "  Modern 
improvements  "  disclose  no  flaw  in  his  method. 
The  world  is  richer  in  truths  of  many  kinds  to- 
day, but  his  wisdom  co-ordinates  and  interprets 
them  all.  Nor  can  there  be  any  limit  to  his 
conquest  short  of  the  boundaries  of  the  earth 
itself.  For  he  spoke  to  humanity  in  its  essen- 
tial elements;  and  his  utterance  therefore  fits 
into  all  the  changes  and  developments  that 
occur.     Wherever  there  lives  a  man,  whatever 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  87 

his  class  or  condition,  there  stands  Jesus  say- 
ing, "  My  brother,  my  beloved,  come  home  with 
me  to  our  Father." 

Was  this  teaching  of  Jesus  unique  and  origi- 
nal ?  Might  it  not  have  been  discovered  in 
due  time  without  him  ?  Deference  to  certain 
prevalent  opinions  requires  us  briefly  to  touch 
these  questions. 

It  is  common  to  hear  that  there  is  UQthing 
new  in  the  Gospel.  That  its  ideas,  precepts, 
sometimes  its  very  words,  were  anticipated  by 
earlier  masters  of  the  farther  Orient,  by  Greek 
and  Roman  sages,  by  the  Rabbins.  And  many 
maxims  and  fragments  of  philosophy  are  cited 
in  proof.  To  this  it  has  been  replied  that 
while  the  elements,  the  atoms  of  the  Gospel 
may  have  entered  piecemeal  the  minds  of  other 
teachers,  their  composition  into  one  consistent 
philosophy,  the  ensemble  of  their  grouping,  and 
the  total  effect  of  their  presentation  by  Jesus 
are  distinctly  original.  This  is  true,  but  it  is 
not  the  whole  truth. 

Where  else,  I  would  ask,  in  religion  or  liter- 
ature shall  we  find  the  parallel  or  prototype  of 
Jesus'  doctrine  of  the  Father  ?  Not  certainly 
in   the   Indian    and    Persian    theologies,    from 


88  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

which  it  differs,  as  from  other  more  recent 
speculations,  in  the  close  personal  relation  it 
exhibits  between  the  Creator  and  his  creatures. 
The  Gospel  does  not  read  like  philosophy,  but 
like  a  chapter  of  every-day  life.  The  appear- 
ance of  tlie  Father  upon  the  scene  does  not 
change  but  only  emphasizes  the  (shall  I  say 
idyllic  ?)  simplicity  and  spontaneity  of  the 
action  of  the  several  factors.  God  is  not  so 
much  an  object  of  thought,  as  the  dominant 
figure  in  the  drama.  Some  have,  indeed,  made 
merry  over  the  shallowness  of  portraying  the 
Deity  as  a  person,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  such  was  Jesus'  conception.  It  is  prepos- 
terous, however,  to  suggest  that  he  found  his 
idea  of  the  Father's  personality  in  the  Greek 
or  Roman  gods,  or  in  the  Hebrew  Jehovah. 
Though  traces  of  resemblance  can  be  pointed 
out,  Jesus'  thought  was  not  an  evolution  of 
antecedent  opinions,  much  less  an  echo  of 
them.  He  struck  out  in  a  new  direction.  He 
found  the  Godhead  not  in  power,  whether  phy- 
sical or  mental,  but  in  moral  excellence,  and 
especially  in  love.  From  that  postulate  he 
never  wavered.  There  is  an  almost  total 
absence  in  his  teaching  even  of  allusion  to 
those  features  of  Deity  which  had  been  cata- 


THE  SAVIOUR  OF   THE   WORLD.  89 

logued  as  wellnigh  his  sole  attributes.  He  is 
content  to  set  him  forth  without  reserve  or 
apology  as  just  "the  Father,"  clothed  with  all 
moral  beauty,  and  almighty  in  the  spiritual 
harmonies  of  his  perfect  nature.  I  am  not 
aware  that  such  an  idea  had  ever  before  entered 
the  brain  of  man. 

The  conception  of  man,  as  a  corollary  of  the 
doctrine  of  God,  shared  its  features  of  original- 
ity. Man  is  the  son  of  God  and  therefore  him- 
self divine,  not  in  a  thaumaturgic  but  in  a 
moral  sense.  Essentially  godlike,  his  servitude 
to  sin  is  tenfold  more  shameful,  but  his  pros- 
pect of  deliverance  is  tenfold  more  secure. 
Thus  humility  and  hope  co-operate  to  produce 
the  feminine  and  masculine  aspects  of  a  full- 
orbed  manhood.  There  is  thus  a  different 
tone  in  the  precepts  of  Jesus,  — no  worship 
of  the  past,  as  in  Confucius ;  no  pessimism, 
no  apotheosis  of  selfishness,  as  in  Buddha;  no 
fatalism,  no  sensualism,  as  in  Mohammed;  no 
ethical  chill  as  in  Cato  or  Epictetus.  Without 
flattery,  but  also  without  cynicism,  the  spirit 
of  Jesus'  address  is  this,  Acquit  yourself  as  a 
child  of  God. 

For  myself,  I  am  convinced  that  only  such  a 


90  THE  SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

person  as  Jesus  was  could  have  seen  these 
truths  in  their  verity  and  completeness.  To 
Natural  Theology  the  problem  of  evil  has 
seemed  to  many  to  offer  only  the  alternative 
between  a  theory  of  impotent  Benevolence  or 
of  cruel  or  negligent  Almightiness  in  the  Deit}^ 
Jesus  faced  the  paradox  with  the  words  "Our 
Father,"  but  no  other  had  dared  pronounce 
those  words.  It  may  be  wondered  whether  our 
courage  in  echoing  them  is  not  rather  a  reflec- 
tion of  the  faith  of  Jesus,  than  the  witness  of 
independent  insight  of  our  own.  Even  after 
these  centuries  of  disci pleship,  were  the  name 
of  Jesus  to  be  erased  from  history,  I  should 
look  for  the  gradual  subsidence  of  our  faith 
from  the  heights  whereon  his  authority  main- 
tains it,  to  a  level  of  doubts  and  fears  which 
our  twilight  understanding  would  not  be  able  to 
banish.  Jesus  said,  "  The  pure  in  heart  shall 
see  God. "  When  our  hearts  are  pure  we  shall 
be  able  to  see  for  ourselves;  but  that  will  be 
when  the  influence  of  Jesus  shall  already  have 
wrought  its  perfect  work  within  us. 

In  all  this  teaching,  therefore,  if  we  are 
right,  Jesus  appears  as  a  competent,  a  complete, 
yes,  the  only  sulFicient  Saviour  of  the  world. 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  91 

2.  Salvation  hy  the  Character  of  Jesus. — 
Such  was  .resiis'  provision  for  the  enlighten- 
ment of  man  as  to  his  nature  and  duties.  But 
how  did  he  meet  the  second  requisite,  that  for 
inspiration,  for  motive-power,  for  getting  men 
actually  enlisted  in  his  cause  ? 

Well,  first,  the  very  simplicity  and  plainness 
of  his  teaching,  the  beauty  of  its  ideals,  its 
touching  appeals  to  the  heart,  its  concrete  pres- 
entation of  the  Father's  care  for  men  (as  in  the 
parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son)  did  much  to  inter- 
est men  in  his  words.  We  cannot  well  get 
enthusiastic  over  a  mystery  nor  over  an  abstrac- 
tion. We  need  to  see  where  we  are  going,  and 
to  feel  something  vital  in  the  occasion,  in  order 
to  respond  with  freest  self-surrender.  Jesus 
was  most  happy  and  strategetic,  therefore,  in 
the  fitness  of  his  doctrine  and  the  charm  of  its 
setting. 

But  the  chief  thing  was,  that  he  did  not  iso- 
late himself  upon  a  pedestal  as  a  mere  teacher. 
He  came  down  and  walked  with  the  people  as  a 
brother-man,  and  worked  out  the  problem  of 
salvation  in  his  own  person  before  their  very 
eyes. 

Jesus  was   Emmanu-el,    God   with   us:   vice 


92  THE   SAVIOUR   OF  THE  WORLD. 

versa,  if  you  please,  he  was  Man-with-God.  He 
represented  the  union  of  the  human  with  the 
divine;  or,  better,  since  the  image  of  God  must 
itself  be  divine,  he  represented  the  human 
become  conscious  of  its  inherent  divinity.  If 
we  can  rid  ourselves  of  the  idle  suggestion  of  a 
duality  of  nature  under  one  personality,  there 
is  light  and  power  in  the  expression  coined  to 
teach  that  impossible  relation,  — Jesus  was 
God-Man,  or,  from  the  other  side,  he  was  Man- 
God.  That  is,  he  realized  in  his  life  the  iden- 
tity of  humanity  with  divinity.  Thus  he  was 
the  best  possible  revelation  of  God  and  also  of 
man.  The  workings  of  his  benignity,  the  ele- 
vation of  his  spirit,  the  marvels  of  his  power 
give  us  far  truer,  deeper,  more  vivid  ideas  of 
the  Father  than  could  any  mere  speculation. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  who  sees  Jesus  sees  man 
at  his  best,  and  knows  what  he  himself  can  do 
and  ought  to  do. 

The  rule  he  elected  must  have  been  deliber- 
ately taken.  It  is  impossible  to  doubt  that 
he  might,  had  he  chosen,  have  appeared  in  the 
character  of  a  savant,  a  philosopher,  a  Rabbi 
like  Hillel  or  Gamaliel,  a  writer  of  books,  or 
even   a   man   of   affairs,    an    aspirant   after   a 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  93 

throne,  a  great  warrior  and  conqueror.  A  dif- 
ferent cast,  to  be  sure,  would  have  been  given 
his  whole  life  by  any  of  these  choices ;  but  had 
he  been  bent  towards  them  from  his  earliest 
youth,  he  might  have  shone  in  either  capacity. 
We  feel  instinctively  that  he  chose  the  very 
highest  and  most  commanding  function,  —  that 
of  a -good  man,  master  of  himself,  in  touch  with 
God,  and  thus  illustrator,  by  simple  excellence 
and  grandeur  of  soul,  of  the  possibilities  of 
human  nature.  The  simplicity  of  his  spirit, 
the  singleness  of  his  purpose,  divested  his 
person  of  all  mere  glamour,  and  delivered  one 
superlative  truth,  the  most  necessary,  the  most 
missed  of  all,  —  that  humanity  is  divine.  To 
achieve  this  was  enough;  to  achieve  it  per- 
fectly he  must  forego  all  other  glories  and  flame 
in  this  alone. 

Such  a  personality  is  necessarily  more  than 
an  interpretation;  it  is  a  lodestone.  It  is  an 
authoritative  challenge  to  low  ideals,  a  thorn 
in  the  flesh  of  self-indulgence.  Not  only  its 
intrinsic  loftiness  and  loveliness,  but  also  its 
extrinsic  advantages  appeal  to  our  sluggish  and 
cowardly  hearts.  It  stands  there  not  to  mock, 
but  to  invite ;  it  lifts  its  hand  to  beckon,  not  to 


94  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE    WORLD. 

repulse.  Its  word  is  not  Go,  but  Come,  itself 
leading  the  van.  Its  uncompanioned  solitari- 
ness is  an  admonition  to  humility;  but  its 
career,  its  struggles,  its  servitude  to  the  uni- 
versal laws  by  which  it  has  triumphed,  inspire 
us  with  the  hope  of  imitation,  and  thrill  us 
with  the  heroism  of  endeavor.  Its  pre-eminent 
value,  however,  is  in  the  aspect  of  reality  it 
gives  to  the  Gospel.  Had  the  ideals  of  Jesus 
stood  forth  only  in  professions  and  preach- 
ments, they  must  have  seemed  overdrawn,  and 
might  have  seemed  purely  visionary.  He  in- 
corporated them  in  a  life,  showed  them  alive 
and  in  motion,  so  to  say,  in  a  working-model, 
and  their  practicable  quality  and  supreme  im- 
portance were  demonstrated.  The  world  could 
far  better  spare  even  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
than  the  historic  Christ. 

The  character  of  Jesus  was  formed  upon  his 
own  ideals.  He  was  in  no  respect  like  those 
"  ungracious  pastors  "  who  show  others 

..."  the  steep  and  thorny  way  to  heaven, 
While  they  themselves  the  primrose  path  of  dalliance  tread, 
And  reck  not  their  own  rede." 

He  "lived  the  precepts  that  he  taught,"  and 
in  nothing  came  short  of  their  full  requirement. 


THE  SAVIOUR   OF  THE  WORLD.  95 

This,  too,  was  essential  to  the  full  acceptance 
of  his  principles;  for  had  he  failed  in  any 
particular  who  could  have  hoped  to  succeed  ? 
Here  again  we  see  him  differentiated  from 
nearly  all  other  great  teachers.  Buddha  is 
perhaps  the  one  exception.  He  did  profess  to 
have  attained  Enlightenment,  the  goal  of  en- 
deavor. But  as  his  standards  were  lower,  so 
his  task  was  less  exacting;  it  is  certain  that 
Buddha  did  not  live  up  to  the  ideals  of  Jesus. 
Besides,  Enlightenment  is  not  a  mark  to  which 
all  Buddhists  may  alike  aspire.  It  is  the  pre- 
rogative of  the  specially  qualified  few.  For 
the  multitude  Nirvana,  that  is,  extinction  or 
absorption,  is  the  highest  hope.  But  in  Jesus 
it  is  human  nature  itself  that  triumphs,  the 
very  nature  we  all  bear,  which  is  thus  tested 
and  proved  to  be  actually  fit  for  divine  things. 

It  was  in  order  to  perpetuate  this  influence  of 
example,  no  doubt,  that  Jesus  took  pains  to 
identify  his  Gospel  with  his  own  personality, 
and  keep  alive  his  memory  in  the  earth.  For 
this  reason  the  disciples  of  Jesus  feel  a  sense  of 
companionship  with  their  Lord  which  is  not 
paralleled  in  any  other  cult.  Lapse  of  centu- 
ries, varieties  of  nationality,  changes  of  civili- 


96  THE   SAVIOUR    OF  THE   WORLD. 

zation  and  of  custom  do  not  affect  this  tender 
intimacy.  They  forget  that  he  was  a  Jew,  a 
youth,  a  "laboring-man";  that  he  lived  nearly 
sixty  generations  ago.  To  them  he  is  a  glori- 
fied human-being,  a  man  of  to-day,  more  real 
than  any  other  great  name,  the  confidant  to 
whom  they  entrust  their  secrets,  the  counsellor 
whose  words  have  infallible  wisdom.  They 
weep  over  his  sorrows  as  fresh  occurrences; 
they  tremble  through  the  recollection  of  his 
vicissitudes ;  they  celebrate  his  two  chief  anni- 
versaries with  unwearied  zest;  they  sing  his 
praises  as  though  to  testify  their  love  in  his 
own  ears.  And  because  he  is  thus  a  present 
reality  not  a  remote  memory,  his"  example  is 
like  a  chapter  of  current  experience,  wielding 
its  perennial  power  over  mankind.  No  other 
appeal  or  argument  has  like  weight.  "Jesus 
said  or  did  so  and  so,"  therefore  must  we  emu- 
late the  model  and  obey  the  truth.  Sometimes 
a  slavish  compliance  with  the  letter  of  his  pre- 
cept results  from  the  desire  to  honor  his  author- 
ity. Sometimes  an  extravagant  material  guise 
is  given  to  the  spiritual  intent,  as  in  the  costly 
mummery  of  high  ceremonial  days  in  the 
church.     But  anyhow  it  is  Jesus,    and  not  a 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE    WORLD.  97 

mere  code,   who  occupies   the  throne  of  admi- 
ration and  authority. 

Christianity  thus  stands  before  the  world  not 
as  an  adjuration  but  as  an  object  lesson.     And 
it   is  obvious  how  it  becomes  in   this  way  a 
generator  of  motive.     It  appeals  directly  to  the 
will-power  through  the  emotions.     Awe,  aspira- 
tion,  shame,    ambition,   personal  devotion  are 
kindlings  of  the  spirit  readily  translated  into 
purpose   and   action.       The   sight  of  Jesus  — 
and,  it  may  be  quite  as  much,  the  sight  of  those 
whom   Jesus  has  transformed,    the  Christians 
whose   lives  are  in   contact   with    our  own  — 
arouses  the  heart's  desire  for  nobler  living,  and 
desire  is  ever  the  parent  of  determination.      The 
Gospel  is  forever  being  republished  in  what  the 
apostle  called  "living  epistles."     Every  saint 
is  a  seed,  whence  springs  a  harvest.      One  hero 
on  the  battlefield   makes  heroes    of    hundreds. 
The  spark   of  virtue,    caught  from  the  Master 
and    transmitted    by    human    fellowships    the 
world  over,  is  putting  fire  on  the  cold  hearth- 
stones  of  myriads   of    lives.     The  process   is 
slower  than  our  impatience  would  ask,  but  it  is 
effectual,    irresistible,    predestined  to   override 
all    barriers,     consume    all    oppositions,     and 
7 


98  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

afford  to  the  travailing  Redeemer  the  satisfac- 
tion at  last  of  a  universal  New  Birth  into  his 
kingdom. 


'O^ 


XII.  —  The  Gift  of  Life. 

The  truth  revealed,  the  inspiration  of  a  per- 
fect exemplar  afforded;  what  more  can  a 
Saviour  do  ?  Jesus  said :  "  The  bread  of  God 
is  that  which  cometh  down  out  of  heaven,  and 
g'iveth  life  unto  the  world  "  (John  vi.  33).  "  As 
the  Father  hath  life  in  himself,  even  so  gave  he 
to  the  Son  also  to  have  life  in  himself  "  (John  v. 
26).  "  I  came  that  they  may  have  life  "  (John 
X.  10). 

Few  words  must  suffice  upon  this  somewhat 
puzzling  point.  I  interpret  the  word  "  life  "  in 
such  passages,  not  specifically  as  spiritual  ex- 
cellence, but  generically  as  vitality.  Emerson 
wrote :  "  I  would  gladly  .  .  .  allow  the  most  to 
the  will  of  man ;  but  ...  I  can  see  nothing  at 
last,  in  success  or  failure,  than  more  or  less  of 
vital  force  supplied  from  the  Eternal  "  (Essay 
on  Experience).  We  see  the  need  of  that  life 
force,  but  where  can  we  procure  it  ?  We  are 
not  surprised  that  the  Creator  should   impart 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  99 

more  or  less  of  it  in  the  birth  endowment ;  but 
we  shrink  from  the  suggestion  that  its  store,  if 
spent,  may  be  replenished  by  the  way.  The 
fact  cannot  be  determined  a  priori.  If  we  feel 
sure  of  our  interpretation,  we  may  be  content 
with  the  simple  authority  of  Jesus.  If  he  says 
he  can  bestow  life,  why  should  we  doubt  it  ? 
But  experience  also  seems  competent,  after 
nineteen  centuries,  to  bear  witness  on  the 
point.  What  is  the  explanation  of  the  sudden 
fullness  of  energy  which  at  times,  under  strong 
religious  incitement,  seems  to  come  to  flagged 
and  enervated  natures  ?  It  conquers  inveterate 
appetite;  it  breaks  the  spell  of  associations; 
it  clothes  the  victim  of  self-debauchment  in  his 
risrht  mind.  If  the  word  of  the  beneficiarv  is 
worth  anything,  he  gets  it  from  Jesus.  We 
may  prefer  to  call  it  the  gift  of  God,  but  it 
appears  to  touch  Christ  on  the  road ;  it  is 
Christmas  that  converts  Scrooge;  it  is  the  very 
voice  of  the  Nazarene  that  transforms  Saul  into 
Paul. 

No  miracle  is  here  assumed,  but  a  divine 
method.  Do  we  not  feel  that  this  is  the 
supreme  necessity  ?  We  well  appreciate  the 
truth   of  the   Gospel,    and   would   fain   follow 


100  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

Jcsiis,  bat  we  are  cold,  dull,  lifeless.  We  hail 
the  standard  from  afar,  but  our  feet  are  stuck 
in  the  mire.  Who  shall  deliver  us  from  the 
body  of  this  death  ?  Could  Jesus  really  replen- 
ish the  depleted  fund  of  vitality  in  the  sinner, 
make  him  tingle  with  dynamic  in  every  fibre, 
it  would  be  like  the  electric  spark  that  unites 
the  elements  which,  though  in  contact  before, 
refused  to  mix ;  it  would  make  men  hunger  and 
thirst  for  the  bread  and  water  of  life,  and  seize 
upon  the  proffered  banquet  with  avidity. 

Come,  holy  spirit,  heavenly  dove, 
With  all  thy  quickening  povi^ers; 

Come,  shed  abroad  a  Saviour's  love, 
And  that  shall  kindle  ours. 

The  human  consciousness  cannot  have  been 
wholly  at  fault  in  supposing  a  visitation  of  God 
to  be  necessary  to  the  torpid  soul's  recovery. 
Jesus  claimed  to  be,  not  the  source,  but  the 
vehicle  of  that  influx.  Just  how  he  keeps  liis 
promise  we  may  not  be  able  to  show ;  but  it  is 
not  necessary  to  postpone  our  diimcr  until  we 
have  thoroughly  mastered  agriculture,  milling, 
the  railroad  system,  and  the  culinary  art,  nor 
to  understand  all  about  anatomy,  physiology, 
medicine,  and  pharmacy,  before  we   take   our 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  101 

dose.  Let  us  live,  whether  with  or  without  a 
theory  of  life.  Let  us  first  accept  the  gift  of 
God,  and  explain  it  afterwards  as  we  can. 

Thus  Jesus  satisfies  all  requisites.  He  teaches 
the  truth,  as  only  he  knew  it  or  could  teach  it. 
He  proved  it  practicable,  and  made  it  irresist- 
ibly magnetic  by  a  perfect  illustration  of  it  in 
his  character.  Finally,  into  jaded  humanity 
he  pours  creative  life.  In  all  this  unique, 
unparalleled  divine,  he  justified  his  claim  to 
be  the  Saviour  of  the  World. 

XIIL  — What  a  Saviour! 

I  had  intended  under  this  head  to  discuss  the 
qualifications  of  Jesus  for  the  stupendous  office 
he  came  to  fill.  The  preceding  argument  has, 
however,  seemed  to  demand  for  its  fair  elucida- 
tion one  after  another  of  the  considerations  which 
might  have  been  grouped  together  here,  and 
has  so  encroached  upon  the  pages  of  our  little 
book  that  only  one  or  two  are  left  for  a  few 
reflections  of  a  general  nature. 

Revert  once  more  to  the  problem  he  had  to 
solve.  It  was  not  enough  that  he,  a  peasant, 
should  press  through  the  abatis  of  class  preja- 


102  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD. 

dice  to  the  citadel  of  honor  and  power.  It  was 
not  enough  that  he  should  win  the  suffrages  of 
the  people  or  any  momentary  triumph  of  au- 
thority. It  was  not  even  enough  that  he  should 
conquer  the  inveteracy  of  Hebrew  tradition,  and 
cope  with  the  disdainful  cults  of  imperial 
Rome,  or  with  her  haughtiness  of  power,  her 
lassitude  of  luxury,  her  ferocity  of  greed  and 
passion.  Incredible  as  such  undertakings  might 
seem,  they  were  scarcely  introductory  to  what 
he  must  accomplish.  Aiming  at  nothing  less 
than  world-wide  dominion,  perpetual  through 
the  ages,  he  must  forestall  the  fickleness  of 
human  nature;  must  by  one  and  the  same 
course  (for  he  had  only  a  single  brief  life  to 
live)  conciliate  or  coerce  all  varieties  of  civili- 
zation ;  must  commend  his  message  to  "  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men,"  to  the  most  oppo- 
site and  fiercely  contending  interests,  to  rich 
and  poor,  the  powerful  and  the  humble,  the 
learned  and  the  illiterate ;  must  anticipate  and 
adapt  himself  to  all  discoveries,  all  evolutions ; 
must,  in  short,  penetrate  to  the  very  centre  of 
human  need,  and  nestle  there,  immovable  and 
regnant,  through  all  time. 

Except  to  secure   him  a  first   footing,  mere 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE  WORLD.  103 

external  advantages  could  have  helped  him 
little  in  such  a  timeless  task.  Native  force 
would  be  more  than  royal  birth,  and  mother- 
wit  than  school-learning  or  the  patronage  of 
potentate  or  party.  For  a  performance  at  once 
so  delicate  and  so  colossal  he  must  trust  to 
himself.  First  of  all,  he  must  be  sure  of  his 
own  ground,  sure  of  God.  That  certainty  being 
won,  the  immutable  laws  which  bind  human 
nature  under  all  its  diversities  of  fortune,  an 
intimate  and  infallible  knowledge  of  the  springs 
of  human  action,  and  the  co-operations  which 
Nature  is  ever  ready  to  lend  to  those  who  side 
with  her,  would  provide  his  Archimedean  lever 
with  which  to  "  move  the  world. "  Jesus  fixed 
upon  two  immutable,  universal  truths.  First, 
he  that  works  with  God  is  bound  to  win.  Sec- 
ond, the  pure  heart  may  see  God,  the  willing 
spirit  may  understand  his  ways.  Loyal  to 
these  truths,  he  made  himself  a  receptacle  of 
God.  That  and  only  that  was  his  secret. 
Thenceforward  his  power,  his  wisdom  were  as 
adequate  to  his  undertakings  as  God's.  He 
was  in  fact  God  in  the  flesh ;  that  is,  as  much 
of  God  as  could  be  incarnated.  His  qualifica- 
tions were  divine. 


104  THE   SAVIOUR   OF  THE   WORLD. 

Doubtless  to  some  the  figure  of  that  Galilean 
peasant,  trudging  the  dusty  paths  of  Palestine, 
making  himself  the  menial  of  every  form  of 
human  need,  seems  disappointing,  almost  insig- 
nificant. Art  has  never  been  brave  or  discern- 
ing enough  to  take  him  as  he  really  was,  in 
all  his  humility.  And  doting  devotion  has 
imagined  him  possessed  of  every  attribute  of 
magnificence,  of  every  human  talent,  unable  to 
accept  his  own  definition  of  greatness  as  simply 
capacity  for  service.  But  no  adventitious  aids 
supported  him  in  his  programme  of  conquest. 
He  had  the  truth;  he  was  right;  he  was  able 
to  live  as  he  taught;  he  was  the  mightiest 
moral  magnet  of  the  ages,  pulling  tirelessly, 
unyieldingly,  all  men  toward  himself.  This,  in 
meagre  words,  is  the  whole  story. 

But  how  that  story  has  developed  itself  in 
history  and  in  experience !  What  a  tribute  to 
his  accuracy  of  pretension  has  been  the  course 
of  human  progress  under  the  spur  of  his  leader- 
ship! What  a  tribute  to  human  nature  is  the 
proof  that  truth  and  goodness  are  the  -  most 
potent  factors  in  its  evolution,  however  hard 
and  hellish  it  may  sometimes  seem !  That  Jesus 
understood  himself  and  knew  how  to  effect  his 


THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   WORLD.  105 

plans,  let  the  authority  of  his  name  in  this  dis- 
tant period  bear  witness ;  let  the  softened  and 
fraternal  civilizations  of  the  earth  bear  witness; 
let  the  Christian  Church,  with  all  its  imperfec- 
tions, but  also  with  all  its  costly  sacrifice  and  en- 
deavor for  his  sake,  bear  witness.  He  has  done 
all  things  well,  so  well  that  we  cannot  doubt 
either  his  purpose  or  his  power  in  the  things 
yet  to  be  done.  He  has  justified  his  claim  to 
be  the  Sayiour  of  the  World. 


THE   END. 


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